Congratulations to my favorite, homeless, Homeless Advocate!!!

Tuesday morning at City Hall, the Washington DC Council honored my friend, Mr. Eric Jonathan Sheptock, enacting ceremonial Bill 200283, which proclaimed December 31 -- "Eric Sheptock Day" (you can read the text of the bill at the link).

Last Thursday evening, Eric sent me this:

November 18th: DC Council to Honor My homeless Advocacy (and I THOUGHT Others' Work Too)

All,

I received word on October 20th that the DC Council would honor the work of myself and possibly other advocates as well. I received the date for the event earlier today. It will take place on Tuesday, November 18th, though I haven't been given a time.

DC Council sessions generally begin around 10 AM, sometimes at 11. I'll publish the exact time when I have it. You are invited. I'll be sure to put in a plug for other advocates.

I've begun to go to work on the Bowser administration: www.ericsheptock.com

My initial reaction was a swelling sense of pride deep in my heart (I've had that feeling often since I met and interviewed him for a class paper I was writing while working on my M.A. in Journalism back in 2009).  I emailed him back about an hour later saying:

Congratulations!!! Be careful though, Man.  Folk like them tend to think they can massage activists into silence with honors! Keep your eyes open and your head up!

Deb

He emailed me back to say he'd call me in about 45 minutes and he did. We talked for an hour, catching up on current events and talking about his upcoming big day.  It was wonderful!  I've said it before and I'll say it again -- I am so proud of this young man!  He's not only been talking the talk for as long as I've known him, he's definitely been walking the walk (not too many people I can say that about these days!).

On Monday he sent me this email:

All,

On November 18th, 2014 in the DC Council chamber I will be recognized for my 8.5 and counting years of homeless advocacy. They will declare December 31st, 2014 to be Eric Jonathan Sheptock Day. Councilman Jim Graham's office just called for a list of my closest associates. I gave about a dozen names that might include YOU. It would be great if YOU were there. I've attached my speech and a copy of the resolution which you'll also find here: Washington D.C. CER20-0283 | 2013-2014 | 20th Council.

He was excited, and two hours later, I replied:

If I could afford to make the 9-hour drive tonight so I could be there in the morning, you know, or ought to know that I would. As a matter of fact, I sat down and took a look at my finances after our telephone call the other day to see if I could surprise you, but I realized I couldn't make it work because I'm driving down to Florida this weekend to spend the week with my husband — we're celebrating our 34th wedding anniversary on Nov. 28th (gotta honor that long damned time together, Man)!!

Like I've told you many times before — I am so-o-o-o damned proud of you Eric!! From our first meeting at Cosi's near the library, UP UNTIL TODAY -- you have been the man you said you were!!!! I am so grateful to have been able to call you my friend. I enjoyed meeting your friends in the park that day (How's "Better Believe Steve doing?), I felt privileged when we all went to see "The Soloist" because I was with people who really, really knew the life Jamie Foxx was trying to portray.

I know that little laptop is probably long-dead by now, but I hope it lasted long enough to keep you pecking away at this wonderfully, meaningful work to which you are committed. While I've always been a homeless advocate, I've never been as activist an advocate as you! Knowing you my Brother, has enriched my life wa-a-a-y more than you will ever know and for that, I thank you.

Have a great day tomorrow Eric, you deserve it! But, remember what I said, "Be careful, Man. Folk like them tend to think they can massage activists into silence with honors! Keep your eyes open and your head up!" -- and of course — KEEP GIVIN' 'EM HELL!!

Take care of yourself,

P.S. Great speech! Would you mind if I posted it along with the text of the resolution (I'll post the resolution today and update the post with your speech after the event is over)? Please let me know. I think it's important that more people than those in DC recognize not only the work, but the kind of man you are.

Deb

He responded:

Feel free to post my speech -- written and video. I'll send you the latter soon.

I'm using the laptop you bought me right now. it's 4 years and 2 months old. I've had to do major non-invasive work on it at times (clean out files, remove viruses etc.); but, it's still working.

happy anniversary! My parents did 41 years until he passed in 2000. I'm sure you'll surpass the number in 8 years.
I wouldn't trouble you to come for this event. I haven't forgotten that you said you'd drop what you're doing and catch a plane to DC if something revolutionary jumped off in a big way. I WILL call you for THAT.

Better Believe Steve is having mobility issues and is in an unstable housing situation right now. He's often in pain due to lower back and leg issues. he's still advocating though. He uses a walker now. I'll tell him you asked about him.

Through coincidence...err Divine providence, this event occurs at 9 AM and then some of its participants will enter Shitty..City Hall for my ceremony and legislation that is before the council concerning affordable housing. It's gonna be a great day!!!  https://www.facebook.com/events/942679665761950/?pnref=story

I'm late in posting both (due to some dental work from which today, I've recovered), but I replied:

Thanks Eric. I'll post the resolution tonight. Damn, I'm glad it's still working!! I tell you Man, that was the best investment I ever made given what you've done with it! Again, Man -- I'm very proud of you. I s-o-o-o look forward to your work with this "new/old administration!"

Thanks for the happy anniversary wish! When we began, 34 years of longevity would've seemed a long time. But now, given your parents' 41 years and his parents' over 60 years before his father passed last year, I think, as my Grandmama used to say, "God willin' and the creek don't rise!" -- we'll get there!

"I wouldn't trouble you to come for this event. I haven't forgotten that you said you'd drop what you're doing and catch a plane to DC if something revolutionary jumped off in a big way. I WILL call you for THAT."

If I could've, I would've, but I'm glad you understand. And yes, particularly since I'm closer in SC now than I was in Texas, I will certainly answer THAT call! Hate to hear about Steve. Isn't he an Air Force Vet? Couldn't he get PSH from some of those gazillion dollars the Changeling proposed in his FY 2010 budget proposal for housing and homeless programs? {smdh} Yes, please do tell him I asked about him.

Divine providence — at least you'll have a larger audience! Yes, my friend, it IS gonna be a great day! Enjoy and savor it, then — get back to work!!!

Take care,
Deb

He replied about Steve's situation and then continued:

...PSH it is just another waiting list for housing, though it's shorter than at the Housing Authority. If they determine his condition is not as bad as someone else's, he moves down the list. That said, I know he's on some housing list but don't know if it's PSH.

DC has come up with a combined assessment for all of the housing lists. That makes applying easier but doesn't necessarily get you housed sooner. I'm not sure if Steve has done this consolidated assessment which is only a few months old called the VI-SPDAT (Vulnerability Index something, something something Assessment Tool)."

With that, I took my ass to bed -- fully planning to post all this the day before it happened. But as I said earlier, the tooth slayed me. I'm feeling better now -- and there's no way I wouldn't pay homage to this man who never, ever gives up -- "Homeless Advocate, thy name is Eric Sheptock!"

Here's his speech:

Eric Jonathan Sheptock – Advocacy Award Acceptance Speech for Nov. 18th, 2014

First of all, I'd like to thank you for this award. It's nice to know that my work hasn't gone unnoticed, though I've been involved in at least a couple of Facebook debates as to whether or not my virtually unpaid advocacy qualifies as work. But I can't say that it's a thankless job; as, many homeless people have stooped me in hallways or on the sidewalk to tell me how much they appreciate what I do sometimes three or four of DC's nearly 9,000 homeless people per day.

I stand on the shoulders of Mitch Snyder and others who worked with him. I'd also like to recognize the dozens of other current day advocates for the rights of the homeless, for living-wage jobs, for affordable housing and for the many other human rights which this city claimed to support on December 10th, 2008. Some of them hearken back to the days of Mitch Snyder and the Reagan Revolution.

While congratulating all advocates – myself and others -- for having an unwavering commitment to ensuring that all people have all of their basic human necessities, you should take pause to recognize what may very well be the grimmest reality of our time – that in this land of plenty there are those who go without.

No worries; for the other advocates and I will continue to fight the good fight as we transition into the Bowser administration. After 15 months in office, Fenty committed to and oversaw the housing of the most vulnerable homeless singles. After 38 months in office, Gray committed to and drew up a plan for providing better shelter to homeless families. I hope that by the time Ms. Bowser has been mayor for six months we'll have a plan for connecting able-bodied homeless adults to living-wage jobs and affordable housing which they can pay for without subsidies.

So, while I appreciate this award and the recognition from the DC Council, the work of the advocates is far from over. We actually have about time-and-a-half as many homeless people now as we had when the Inter-agency Council on Homelessness first met in June 2006 and probably twice as many as we had in 2004 when we adopted a 10-year plan to end homelessness by next month (December 2014). Needless to say, I don't have any faith in 10-year plans.

My commitment to real solutions is proven in part by the fact that I've already attempted to connect with the Bowser transition team so as to offer guidance on how to actually DECREASE homelessness in the city. In January we need to hit the ground running – especially if the weather is anything like it is today.

Thank you.

While I do believe the new administration is trying to get out in front of Eric's relentlessness by stroking him (they've no idea with whom they're dealing!)  -- I must say again, I'm so damned proud and privileged to call him -- "FRIEND."

Homelessness in the seat of power, during and after the Age of Obama

I remember a mere three months after the Changeling's "selection" and their move into the Big House, my favorite homeless, homeless advocate, Eric Sheptock called me excitedly saying that Michelle Obama had come to Miriam's Kitchen in DC to feed the homeless.

It was his hope the "selection," coupled with her show of some interest in homelessness (vis-à-vis her one-day visit to the soup-kitchen) -- that the DC government apparatchiks (former mayor, Adrian Fenty in particular) would "turn to" (Navy slang for "Get to work!") regarding the homeless.  I didn't share his enthusiasm and said so.

Then, two months later, a funny thing happened from deus ex machina to actual Trojan Horse-dom regarding the Changeling.  According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness:

Today, May 7, President Obama released his budget proposal for fiscal year (FY) 2010. The budget included funding proposals for housing and homeless programs....Highlights of the funding for homeless programs include:
• $1.8 billion for McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Grants, an increase of $117 million over FY 2009;
•$46.3 billion for HUD programs, an 11 percent increase;
•$1 billion for a National Affordable Housing Trust Fund;
•$68 million for the Projects for Assistance in Transition from Homelessness (PATH) program, an $8 million increase over the FY 2009 level;
•$19 million for a new DC Housing First Initiative to provide supportive housing to homeless individuals and families;
•$26 million for a pilot program to prevent homelessness for veterans.

That's a lot of damn money, no??!!

Yet, when I read this piece at OpEdNews on Election Day -- 90-year-old man, two pastors cited for feeding homeless in Florida, I immediately thought about two things:  this visual from Truthdig's, 'Somebody Called the Cops on Jesus' (Audio) story earlier this year...

The Rev. David Buck sits next to the Jesus the Homeless statue that was installed in front of his church, St. Alban's Episcopal, in Davidson, N.C.

...and this more recent post in early October from Eric, which he graciously allowed me to repost:

Job Discrimination Against the Homeless: Shirley Contracting and DC's First-Source Law

It's been said by social justice advocates and activists that, “There are 20 years that don't make a day; and then, there's that day that makes 20 years”. I think I just had my day that makes 20 years on October 3rd, 2014. I attended a hearing at Washington, DC's City Hall (The John A. Wilson Building). It was about the 41% cut to TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) that went into effect on October 1st, 2014. I didn't plan to testify, only to observe. However, as I heard various homeless or poor mothers and one single woman from the non-profit community testify, the gears began turning and I gave into tempation.

A woman on the previous four-person panel set things off when she shifted from talking about the increased hardships that she and her child will endure as a result of the near-half reduction in public benefits to talking about how she doesn't believe that city officials really want to end homelessness or poverty. She even talked about how the system that creates or deepens people's poverty then blames those people for their poverty and was one of at least two mothers who talked about how more poor people will commit crimes of survival as their public benefits are cut. They went on to mention the prison-industrial complex and how that, as people commit crimes of survival, prisons are being built and expanded and police are at the ready to arrest the poor and throw them in jail where money can be made off of them.

I shared the testimony table with three mothers. Naila (nah – EE – lah) is still relatively new to advocacy. Other long-term advocates and I have been offering our support to get her started. She sat to my right. Naila was the first person on our panel to speak. She told of homeless parents being intimidated by staff for speaking out about shelter conditions and of how the homeless families at the Quality Inn, courtesy of DC Government, had received notices of eviction with nowhere to go and no one to talk to. I fleshed out what the woman on the previous panel said by giving some very specific examples of systemic failures that add up to poor people being gentrified out of the city or that make their lives harder. After all, I've dealt with DC Government for eight years and some change. I know about their major SNAFU's since June 2006 first-hand and have heard about others that occurred prior to my becoming a homeless advocate. A woman who shares my mother's name and put herself through professional schooling while homeless sat to my left. A woman who suffers from Dyslexia but has three gifted children sat to the right of Naila who broke into tears as she heard the mother of three speak. I held and comforted her.

Councilman Jim Graham was so impressed with the testimonies of our panel that he strongly advised us to organize for power. Immediately after our panel was finished, the four of us stood, exchanged hugs (which is uncommon at a hearing) and walked into the hall to exchange contact info and plan when we would meet to organize. (That will happen on Monday, October 6th at 1 PM at the MLK, Jr. Library in Room A-9.) I was impressed by the fluidity of our collective testimonies even though we hadn't collaborated on them. I was also impressed by the critique of the capitalist system that took place during the hearing. It was reminiscent of the hearing a day earlier before the same councilman concerning the future of the CCNV Shelter. During that hearing a man who is new to advocacy talked mainly about the hurtful effects of the capitalist system and the fact that much of what city officials claim to do out of concern for homeless people is just a facade. While myself and other advocates have known these things for years, it is unusual for a person who is testifying to exit the topic of the hearing and give a general critique of the system; and, it is almost unheard of to have several people's testimonies so unintentionally and coincidentally build the case for an indictment against the same.

During my testimony I mentioned the fact that there weren't many homeless families present at a hearing that directly affects them; because, they don't have enough money to ride the transit system – that the problem we were there to discuss was self-compounding insomuch as the decreased funds decrease the ability of the poor to attend events where they should be speaking out about their plight. I also said that,though it's rather pie-in-the-sky, maybe we should approach the transit authority about assisting homeless families by giving them free rides or reduced fares, especially when attending such a meeting. Councilman Graham would later say that he can help with transportation. I also mentioned the fact that,with homeless families at the Quality Inn having been told to leave with nowhere to go and no one to talk to about their plight, we were returning to the atrocities of the winter of 2010-11.

During that winter, homeless mothers were turned away from an over-crowded shelter with their infants and toddlers in tow and given tokens to ride the bus all night. (The buses stop between 2 and 5 AM.) One particular boy who was born on February 10th spent his first month of life homeless as his mother slept with him in her storage unit, the Greyhound station and the stairwell of an unsecured apartment building. I too mentioned the insufficient political will to end homelessness, as I had the day before. At both hearings I mentioned Shirley Contracting which has begun a large 10-year building project right across the road from the shelter and only made a token effort to hire homeless people. I'm left to wonder if they've made any more of an effort to hire other Washingtonians.

I left the hearing at about 1:20 PM to go to an interview with an American University student who wanted to know about the phenomenon whereby homeless people are made to feelinvisible. Along with one other man, I told her about how the general public often tries not to notice a homeless person. I told her of how homeless parents often sleep in the bushes of various parks for fear that if they apply for shelter, the shelter is full and they are honest about not having anywhere to sleep indoors, then theirchildren will be taken away. This causes homeless parents to want to become “invisible”. I also told her about FEMA camps that are being erected in various cities, ostensibly in preparation for a disaster, and are being used as homeless shelters where a homeless person must go and is not allowed to leave without an escort in a van.

Then it was on to the radio station where I was one of three people on an hour-long show that centered around the book by my good friend, former Cleveland resident and current American University professor Dan Kerr called “DerelictParadise”. His book addresses poverty pimping from an academic standpoint. It shows the connection between the cheap labor afforded by day labor halls, the race to the bottom in terms of wages and the increase in homelessness since 1945. Dan, a Caucasian, beat me to the punch by being the first to mention that “urban renewal” is actually”negro removal”. (I really WAS getting ready to say that in my next comment when he said it. Great minds think alike.) It was here at WPFW 89.3 FM during the show with Garland Nixon from 6 to 7PM on October 3rd, 2014 that I mentioned the indictment of Shirley Contracting for the third time in two days (all three times having been taped and made available in the public domain.) The indictment is as follows:

In late August or early September 2014 Shirley Contracting which is a subsidiary of Clark Construction began work on a 10-year project near the 200 block of E Street NW in Washington, DC. There is a shelter building which holds up to 1,350 of the city's 8,000+ homeless people which is located diagonally across the road on the southeast corner of the same intersection. It contains three separate shelters, a clinic, a drug program and a kitchen that feeds 5,000 poor people per day and is collectively known as the Federal City Shelter. The CCNV (Community for Creative Non-Violence) is one of those shelters in the building with 950 of the beds. There are probably 300 people in that building who are fully capable of doing construction labor. There may be upwards of 100 who have skills in the construction trades.

Washington, DC has what are called “First Source Laws” which mandate that employers make a good-faith effort to ensure that at least 51% of their employees are DC residents. After they make a good-faith effort to hire DC residents, they are allowed to hire people from outside of DC. The following amounts to what I suspect was a token effort to hire DC residents and one which uses homeless people in ways that the homeless might not be aware.

I was told by a man who, along with his co-workers, comes from the Academy of Sciences during his lunch break to help homeless people write resumes and apply on-line for jobs that Shirley Contracting had indeed contacted the shelter administration to inform them that the company was hiring. This friend had been led to believe that the company wanted to hire a large number of people from the shelter. The shelter administration did not make it their business to convey this information to all residents, though I have no complaint about the man who told me.

I went to the company's website, sent them a message expressing my desire to discuss them hiring homeless people, made a flier with their contact info along with what I'd been told and posted those fliers at the shelter. On or around September 10th I called Shirley Contracting. I was put through to a certain Carrie Carr-Maina (703-550-1127) and explained my understanding of the matter. She seemed rather friendly, for what that's worth to you. (She works in HR.) She said that, while she doesn't know who from her company contacted the shelter, she thinks that they might have simply told the shelter that Shirley is hiring but doubts that they stated a desire to hire any homeless people. She emphasized that anyone may apply. She explained that the application can be done on-line or in person at the office in Lorton Virginia which is beyond where the transit system goes and considerably difficult to get to – especially if you are a homeless person of limited means. (It stands to reason that the interview would be in Lorton even if one were to apply on-line.) Ms. Carr-Maina suggested getting a van and bringing 10 people out to apply in Lorton. She also told me that Shirley Contracting would be participating in a job fair at the Washington Convention Center on September 24th.

On September 23rd I called Carrie Carr-Maina to confirm that she would be at the job fair the next day. She said she would but then asked me if I'd seen her e-mail. I hadn't. She then proceeded to tell me that I was publishing bad information about Shirley Contracting that included the idea that the companywould transport homeless people to Lorton for the interview. I asked her when she sent it and she said the 15th. I thought that a mentally ill homeless advocate whom I know may have made his own version of my flier and sent it out in the name of SHARC, the advocate group that I chaired beginning at the group's inception in April 2011. When I went back and read the e-mail, it had a faxed copy of my flier and a company flier along with a message from Carrie about the large amount of human resources that were wasted dealing with people who were calling in based on bad information. My flier said nothing about the company having offered to ride homeless people to the office in Lorton.

During this conversation I asked her about the claim by a certain homeless man that Shirley Conracting was hiring through the Local 657 labor union for construction and general labor. She said, “No”. She also told me that many other Shirley jobs were coming to a close and that those workers would be transferred to the site near the shelter, leaving very few jobs for the homeless to obtain.

I received a text from a different number (702-358-0411) on September 23rd which said that the job fair was at the Doubletree Hotel in Crystal City. The number belongs to what appears to be an identity protection firm in Las Vegas named “Level 3 VoIP”. I'm left to wonder why anybody from Las Vegas is contacting me, with me having no connections there. I didn't actually see the text until the morning of the 24th. I'd hung fliers directing people to the Washington Convention days earlier. I now had to write what I thought was the proper address on the fliers by hand. But it was too late. Some people had already made their way to the Convention Center.

I wrote this entire experience off as water under the bridge and decided that I would still do all that I could to connect homeless people to the jobs across the street from the shelter. I printed the company flier that Carrie had sent me, which had very scant information about the company's job offerings. Then I went to the hearing about the shelter's future on October 2nd. During my testimony, I mentioned the irony of it being so hard for homeless people to get the job across the street. I highlighted that there was an affordable housing issue on one side of the road and a living-wage issue on the other side of the road. What I would hear another man testify about moments later would cause the plot to thicken.

The last man to testify was new to advocacy. He made an indictment of the system as a whole and talked about how DC is being given to the wealthy and the well-to-do. Then he mentioned his experience dealing with Shirley Contracting. He'd initially been told that the job fair was in Crystal City. He claims that it actually took place in Pentagon City. At that moment I realized that I wasn't the only one to be given the run-around by Shirley Contracting and that it wasn't a matter of my own carelessness. I made sure to mention my updated assessment at the October 3rd hearing and during my October 3rd broadcast.

I've brought this matter up during several of my in-person conversations (as opposed to radio broadcasts). My friends and associates agree with me that, if Shirley has a project which I've been told will net them $2.8 billion and which will last for 10 years, they should have to establish a DC office or a mere office trailer on the job site where Washingtonians can apply and interview. We also agree that Shirley just used the homeless. Irrespective of their homeless status, the 1,350 people at the Federal City Shelter are DC residents. Shirley could, in theory, call the shelter director to say that they are hiring and then put that down as having reached out to over 1,000 DC residents about prospective employment with the company. Not only would it bring them closer to reaching the bare minimum of DC residents so as to justify them looking outside of the city for employees, in accordance with the First Source Laws. It might also bring them closer to satisfying some federal law that mandates that they reach out to depressed communities and other disadvantaged groups – such as “Equality Opportunity Laws”.

We can't let this token effort pass as a satisfaction of either law. Let's strengthen either law so as to require Shirley Contracting to establish a DC-based employment office and to visit the shelter and talk directly to groups of prospective employees at the shelter across the road. Let's take it a step further by strictly defining the real employment opportunities that they must offer and the reasonable accommodations that they must make to enable homeless people to obtain employment at the site across the road. They should also have to help them make it through until their first check – namely with cash advances against their hours worked. They should have to do this last thing for at least two weeks and, at most, five or six weeks. I've picked a fight with Shirley. Who will join that fight?????

Unfortunately Eric, I doubt there are many (if any) residents in the now, nearly completely gentrified (read "bleached," thanks to Jefe at an Abagond post some time ago), decidedly unaffordable District of Columbia -- including the newly "selected" mayor, Muriel Bowser who will likely join that fight. {smdh}

Now, if the afore-mentioned instances are not excellent enough reminders of how so totally un-Christlike, these self-professed Christians, living in and running this so-called Christian nation really are, I don't know what else you need.  Not only is homelessness criminalized (pretty much everywhere the gentrifiers slide in), they're also involved in all sorts of schemes to totally crush people's spirit -- and keep them homeless!!!  I just gotta ask all you God-fearin', Scripture-spoutin',  saved hypocrites two things:  Is this what Jesus would do and -- what the hell happened to all that money??!!

Wake the hell up Family!  After the current  mid-terms, where Republicans have gained total control of an already, do-nothing' Congress, it's not going to get any better for humanity in this country!  Corporations as people and how much your "brand" is worth, is unfortunately, the order of the day -- unless of course, we all "join that fight."

Please check out Eric's blog on homelessness in the seat of power in these alleged United States of America at: Tick Tock Sheptock.

Related:
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- 2 Friends Turned A Van Into A Laundromat So Homeless People Can Wash Their Clothes
- It is now illegal to distribute food to homeless people in 21 cities
- Can a ‘Homeless Bill of Rights’ End the Criminalization of LA’s Most Vulnerable Residents?
- From Super Bowl Champion to Homeless Retiree

My favorite homeless, homeless advocate, Eric Sheptock -- still on the job!

The year I met Eric Sheptock, I was working on my Masters in Journalism at Georgetown.  And though I withdrew after a year for personal reasons, the time I spent with Eric and his friends taught me way more than the Jesuits ever could.

I am so proud of his man!  He's smart, driven and committed to ensuring the homeless, who live in the shadow of the White House and Congress -- are treated with dignity and respect and, that they  receive equitable treatment in their search for some degree of agency in their own lives.

Listen, while he lays out the latest insult to that very agency and self-determination:



When I graduated from my Alabama HBCU, I moved to DC during the time that Mitch Snyder, the other homeless, homeless advocate, to whom Eric referred above, negotiated the CCNV deal (District residents were fighting "Taxation without Representation" then too!  Funny how nothing's changed but the faces of the struggle in 35 years right?).  I thought it odd then that, in our nation's capital, so many people were fighting just to have a decent place to stay.  I was young and dumb then.  I don't find it odd anymore.

Please go here if you believe there should be even a modicum of true change you can believe in and sign Eric's petition, Family.  Help DC's homeless population have a seat at the table in deciding their own fate. Remember, there but for the grace...

Some points to ponder as you gear-up for Tuesday

The Virtual Economic Recovery
By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts
Global Research, October 30, 2012

Americans are far more oppressed by the power brokers in Washington than statistics display. Moreover, the young are born into the oppressive, exploitative American system and do not know any different. They are fed by the Presstitute media with endless propaganda about how fortunate they are and how indispensable their wonderful country is. Americans are kept in a constant state of amusement, and many never grasp the loss of their civil liberties, job and career opportunities, and respect that the US won during the decades-long cold war with Soviet Communism.

~#~

Police State USA: In Amerika there will Never be a Real Debate
By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts
Global Research, October 24, 2012

No doubt that Americans, if they think of this at all, believe that it will only happen to terrorists who deserve it. But as no evidence or due process is required, how would we know that it only happens to terrorists? Can we really trust a government that has started wars in 7 countries on the basis of falsehoods? If the US government will lie about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction in order to invade a country, why won’t it lie about who is a terrorist?

America needs a debate about how we can be made more safe by removing the Constitutional protection of due process. If the power of government is not limited by the Constitution, are we ruled by Caesar? The Founding Fathers did not think we could trust a caesar with our safety. What has changed that we can now trust a caesar?

If we are under such a terrorist threat that the Constitution has to be suspended or replaced by unaccountable executive action, how come all the alleged terrorist cases are sting operations organized by the FBI? In eleven years there has not been a single case in which the “terrorist” had the initiative!

In the eleven years since 9/11, acts of domestic terrorism have been miniscule if they even exist. What justifies the enormous and expensive Department of Homeland Security? Why does Homeland Security have military-equipped Special Response Teams with armored vehicles? Who are the targets of these militarized units? If eleven years of US government murder, maiming, and displacement of millions of Muslims hasn’t provoked massive acts of domestic terrorism, why is Homeland Security creating a domestic armed force of its own? Why are there no congressional hearings and no public discussion? How can a government whose budget is deep in the red afford a second military force with no defined and Constitutionally legal purpose?

What is Homeland Security’s motivation in creating a Homeland Youth? Is the new FEMA Corps a disguise for a more sinister purpose, a Hitler Youth as Internet sites suggest? Are the massive ammunition purchases by Homeland Security related to the raising of a nationwide corps of 18- to 24-year-olds? How can so much be going on in front of our eyes with no questions asked?

Why did not Romney ask Obama why he is working to overturn the federal court’s ruling that US citizens cannot be subject to indefinite detention in violation of the US Constitution? Is it because Romney and his neoconservative advisers agree with Obama and his advisers? If so, then why is one tyrant better than another?

Why has the US constructed a network of detainment camps, for which it is hiring “internment specialists”?

Why does the US Army now have a policy for “establishing civilian inmate labor programs and civilian prison camps on Army installations“?...

...How wonderful it would have been for Obama and Romney to have confronted in a real debate how QE3, designed to help insolvent “banks too big to fail,” can help households operating, with two earners, on real incomes of 45 years ago, which is where the current real median household income stands.

How does saving a bank, designated as “too big to fail,” help the family whose jobs or main job has been exported to China or India in order to maximize corporate profits, executive performance bonuses and shareholders’ capital gains?

Obviously the working population of the US has been sacrificed to the profits of the mega-rich.

An appropriate debate question is: Why has the livelihood of working Americans been sacrificed to the profits of the mega-rich?

No such question will ever be asked in a “presidential debate.”

In the 21st century, US citizens became nonentities. They are brutalized by the police whose incomes their taxes pay. They, for protesting some injustice or for no cause at all, are beaten, arrested, tasered and even murdered. The police, paid by the public, beat up paralyzed people in wheel chairs, frame those who call them for help against criminals, taser grandmothers and small children, and shoot down in cold blood unarmed citizens who have done nothing except lose control of themselves, either through alcohol, drugs, or rage.

Brainwashed Americans pay large taxes at every level of government for protection against gratuitous violence, but what their taxes support is gratuitous violence against themselves. Every American, except for the small number of mega-rich who control Washington, can be arrested and dispossessed, both liberty and property, on the basis of nothing but an allegation of a member of the executive branch who might want the accused’s wife, girlfriend, property, or to settle a score, or to exterminate a rival, or to score against a high school, college, or business rival.

In America today, law serves the powerful, not justice. In effect, there is no law, and there is no justice. Only unaccountable power.

What is the point of a vote when the outcome is the same? Both candidates represent the interests of Israel, not the interests of the US. Both candidates represent the interests of the military/security complex, agribusiness, the offshoring corporations, the suppression of unions and workers, the total demise of civil liberty and the US Constitution, which is in the way of unbridled executive power .

In the US today, the power of money rules. Nothing else is in the equation. Why vote to lend your support to the continuation of your own exploitation? Every time Americans vote it is a vote for their own obliteration.

~#~

Obama-Romney: Two Defenders of American Imperialism
By Patrick Martin
Global Research, October 22, 2012

These disputes, however, take place within a common political framework. They amount to wrangling about which individual will be more effective in implementing a policy on which they fundamentally agree.

Behind the backs of the American people, the United States is preparing new military interventions and wars of aggression against Syria and Iran, first of all, and ultimately against China, Russia and other rival powers.

The entire process demonstrates the thoroughly undemocratic character of the election itself, in which the American people have no say on any of the fundamental issues.

Obama won the Democratic Party nomination in 2008 over Hillary Clinton in large measure because he positioned himself as the more “antiwar” of the two candidates, in part by repeatedly citing her 2002 vote to authorize George W. Bush’s war of aggression against Iraq. He won the general election over McCain by taking advantage of the massive popular discontent with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Once in office, however, Obama reappointed Bush’s secretary of defense, Robert Gates, selected a former general as his national security adviser, and his “hawkish” former rival Hillary Clinton as secretary of state. He doubled and then tripled the US troop commitment to Afghanistan, while adhering to the withdrawal schedule in Iraq negotiated by the Bush administration.

Last year, Obama played the decisive role in facilitating the NATO war against Libya, which led to the overthrow and murder of Muammar Gaddafi and 50,000 deaths. Now his administration is preparing a similar fate for the Assad regime in Syria, where the US-instigated civil war has already claimed 30,000 lives.

US troops, warplanes and drone missiles are now deployed over a far wider area than under the Bush administration, including the Arabian Peninsula, the Horn of Africa, and much of the Sahara and North Africa, in addition to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

~#~

Libya’s Green Resistance Did It... And NATO Powers Are Covering Up
By Mark Robertson and Finian Cunningham
Global Research, September 20, 2012

The NATO powers and the bureaucrats they installed in Libya want you to think that all 5.6 million Libyans are happy that NATO and its proxy terrorists destroyed Libya, whose standard of living had been Africa’s highest under Gaddafi.

They want you to think that NATO brought “freedom and democracy” to Libya, not chaos and death.

They want you to think that there is no Green Resistance to the NATO imperialists or NATO’s Islamist allies in Benghazi.

In reality, the Resistance has been increasingly active since shortly after the murder of Muammar Gaddafi in October 2011, as will be shown below. They strike any NATO target they can, and they execute key Libyans who betrayed Gaddafi and sided with NATO. The Benghazi incident was merely their latest blow against what they see as NATO’s illegal occupation of their country.

Everyone in Libya knows about the Green Resistance, whose members are called “Tahloob” (Arabic for “Gaddafi loyalists”). The denial only happens outside of Libya, by the NATO powers and their dutiful Western mainstream media.

Because of this denial, and because most of the world’s people have forgotten about Libya, the internet is filled with blind guesses, unfounded claims, and ridiculous counterclaims regarding the Benghazi incident last week in which US Ambassador Christopher Stevens and at least three other American personnel were killed. And the NATO lie factory is operating at full blast.

~#~

UPDATE:

Got this email from my friend Eric Sheptock (now, the Chairman of SHARC!) today.  I met Eric in 2009, while I was in graduate school in DC.  I am so damned proud of this Brother! Never forgetting where he'd been, he turned his homelessness (in the shadows of the White House and Congress!) into some serious advocacy!  If you're anywhere in the area, please do check him out (info at the SHARC link)!

SHARC Update and Discussion Points for November 5th Meeting,
Scanned Documents from Today's MTG & Updated demand List

All,

People did a great job coming together to make the October 29th event happen. However, Sandy tested our resilience. Let's not despair; but rather, let's get reinvigorated for yet another round of homeless advocacy. Below and attached you'll see discussion points for our next weekly meeting. Please read them and come full of ideas that we can discuss as we chart the path forward.

Also attached are the scanned documents from the mayor's office and the demand list relabeled as "SHARC Homeless Town Hall List of Demands."

SHARC Update and Discussion Points for November 5th Meeting

1 – SHARC has weathered the storm and made the best of a mess. Though Sandy “rained on our parade” by forcing the cancellation of an event which we spent five weeks planning and organizing, it hasn't discouraged us from trying again. We'll come back bigger and better the next time.

There is no need to consider what possible shortcomings SHARC may have exhibited during the storm. Given the fact that we had many food donations, the rain date would have been the next day (Tuesday) during which the government was shut down. Sandy was an unpredictable storm which we only found out on the 26th was going hit us on the 29th of October (the day of our event). That said, the five weeks leading up to October 29th were a true show of our increased organizing ability. So, let's give ourselves a hand, dust ourselves off and chart the path forward.

As a result of Sandy, SHARC members were able to:

• begin the conversation around bringing three councilmembers together in a meeting. They are Jim Graham (Human Services Oversight Committee), Michael Brown (Oversight Committee on Economic Development and Housing) and Kenyan McDuffie (oversight Committee on Jobs and Workforce Development).
• Speak with several councilmembers on the dais during their legislative meeting and make the case for ending homelessness rather than maintaining it.
• Arrange a meeting with the mayor

2 – Weekly and Homeless Town Hall Meetings during the holiday and hypothermia season:

a) What day do we want our next big event to fall on?

– November 26th (the last Monday of the month)?
– December 31st (the last Monday of the year)?

• December 24th (Christmas Eve)?
• December 17th (which would give us six weeks to organize and fall nicely between events highlighting homelessness and hunger in the third week of November and the Homeless Persons' Memorial Day on December 21st)?

b) Do we want to meet on Christmas Eve or new Year's Eve? Both fall on Mondays.

c) Do we want to do anything special around Thanksgiving (November 22nd)? The Fannie Mae Homeless Walkathon would have been on November 17th (the Saturday before Thanksgiving).

3 – What should our next big event (our make up event for “Occupy the DC Council”) be?

An idea is that we plan a march from CCNV to the Wilson Building beginning at 11 AM on November 26th. We make our case to the council and/or the mayor. We then return to CCNV around 1 PM for our regular Homeless Town Hall Meeting. Those who marched are given tickets upon exiting the Wilson Building and eat first.

Another idea is that we plan a large event inside of the Wilson Building on December 17th (possibly without a march) and invite churches and other groups to feed the homeless there.

It doesn't need to be “either/or”.  It can be “both/and”.
You are welcome to present additional ideas. These are just conversation starters.

4 – “The Future” of CCNV:

City officials and people from the business community have begun conversation around “The Future” of the CCNV Shelter. During my meeting with one such person, there was some confusion as to when either of us was talking about CCNV as is or the new concept which we envision. We began to refer to the revamped CCNV Shelter as “The Future”.

It is believed by many that the restrictive covenant between Ronald Reagan and Mitch Snyder mandates that the building be used as a homeless shelter until 2018 and the parking lot belongs to the homeless until 2099 with the right to renew the lease for the latter indefinitely. It is also believed that the property on which the building and parking lot sit is worth as much as $120M. What's certain is that, if the building were sold, ALL MONIES GENERATED FROM THE SALE MUST BE USED FOR THE HOMELESS COMMUNITY.

All of this adds up to the city being FORCED to use the CCNV property to assist the homeless community in one way or another. City officials and the business community have been informed that ANY PLANS TO BUILD ON THAT PIECE OF LAND WOULD HAVE TO INCLUDE HOUSING AT LEAST 1,350 HOMELESS PEOPLE. This gives homeless/housing advocates a constant (invariable) which we can use as a starting point for our thoughts on how best to assist the homeless residents of the Federal City Shelter (CCNV, Open Door, John L. Young, DC Central Kitchen and the Unity Health Clinic).

Plans that are being discussed include:

• building a 10-story building on the parking lot
• taking the present building up to 10 stories (possibly rebuilding it from the ground up)
• having a mix of permanent apartments, supportive housing units, transitional housing units and shelter for at least 1,350 people
• giving tax credits to contractors
• having homeless people help design the program

While several people have expressed understandable skepticism about the city's plans to effectively assist the homeless community, let's bear in mind that a 24-year old restrictive covenant is holding them at bay. Let's also remember that, if we refuse to come to the table with those who are ostensibly there to work with us, we give them occasion to say that they reached out to us and WE refused to work with them. On the other hand, if we come to the table with city officials and members of the business community and they fail to make good on their promises, they give us occasion to pin the blame on THEM. So, let's give them a chance.

A contract employee of the business community might attend our November 19th SHARC meeting.

5 – Forming a charette: It has been suggested that we form a charette that would draw up a plan for ending homelessness in DC and then take that plan to government officials, as opposed to waiting for the governments to end homelessness.

6 – Creating unconventional partnerships: It has been suggested that SHARC develop unconventional partnerships with environmental groups, the LGBT community and others who don't usually advocate with or for the homeless, as there are various reasons for which we are inextricably connected to them. (Most homeless teens were thrown out of their parents' house for being LGBT and the construction of affordable housing lends itself to the creation of green jobs.)

7 – Protesting/opposing unconventional targets: It has been suggested that SHARC demonstrate in front of the Verizon Center and other businesses that have tried to push homeless people and/or homeless services (including housing for the homeless) out of their neighborhood.

8 – Making our enemies work for/with us: It has been suggested that we involve those who don't want the homeless in their neighborhoods (see item #7) in our effort to end homelessness.


Related:
- Is This Really The Most Important Election Ever? If So, Then Where Are Our Issues?
- The Changeling and the Democrats still lying about equal pay
- DC Voting Rights Bill Gets Yanked By Congress

American terrorism - "you can dress it up" tomorrow, "but you can't take it out" - of reality

"In the church I come from - which is not at all the same church to which white Americans belong - we were counselled, from time to time, to do our first works over. Though the church I come from and the church to which most white Americans belong are both Christian churches, their relationship - due to those pragmatic decisions concerning Property made by a Christian State sometime ago - cannot be said to involve, or suggest, the fellowship of Christians. We do not, therefore, share the same hope or speak the same language. (emphasis mine)

To do your first works over means to reexamine everything. Go back to where you started, or as far back as you can, examine all of it, travel your road and tell the truth about it. Shout or testify or keep it to yourself but know whence you came." (emphasis his)

James Baldwin

"The Price of the Ticket"

First of all, I apologize to those of you who've been periodically returning for the end of the "Homegoing" series.  I so appreciate your patience and I assure you, Part 5 is forthcoming.  But since Part 4 - as is its wont - life just kept happening, mightily challenging many of my remaining realities and making "All My Bones Shake."

In the interim, I sporadically posted and/or commented elsewhere, as I watched the HN(Over-seer)IC  - partner with the usual imperialist suspects in raining down all manner of death-delivering armaments on a sovereign, African country with the intent of assassinating its leader; authorize and actually oversee the orchestrated murder (true or not - that visual was disturbing) of another, non-alabaster-skinned brother; play a shell game with brown brothers and sisters at the border, even as he and Brother-Ass-Coverer played a botched game of Fast and Furious - all, while totally ignoring what his privileged, string-pullers are doing to Blacks - here and in Haiti.

(An interesting, electioneering aside - my friend, Eric Sheptock left a message on my phone this morning (What?  It's Saturday!  And - I'm an hour behind him!  Let me tell you, voicemail is all anyone will get from me before noon, especially on a Saturday!), advising that the Changeling, himself, will be visiting the CCNV Homeless Shelter this morning.  Since our meeting during my first - and last - year of grad school in DC, he keeps me up on all things activism.  Now, you mean to tell me, that in two-and-a-half years, he couldn't make it the 1.5 miles to 2nd St., NW (I know that's the distance, because I lived off of 3rd St, NE while in school)  - to see about the homeless living in the shadow of the Big House??  Puh-leeze!  I returned his call once I got up and movin' - and got his voicemail.  I left him a message saying, "I know you're in the throes of Obama-love right now, but call me when you're done.")

Yes, all my bones have surely been shaking, signalling that it was way past time to do some of "my first works over."  And that's pretty much where my mind's been (and often still is).  And alas, I've been side-tracked yet again, with the convergence of these recent events, which prompted forced me to write this post on American terrorism before publishing Part 5:

• the planned, then postponed, MLK memorial dedication (about which I've written, here and here);
• the electioneering, "Zing, went the (AIPAC) strings of (the Changeling's) heart" on Palestine (which I'll address, yet again in an upcoming post);
• my blog-sister, Kitty, giving me the, available-this-month, heads-up on "The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975" (and the various and sundry, needin'-happy-darkies reviews of same, which also requires a separate post);
• the upcoming 10th anniversary of 9/11;
• and finally, this jolting piece of "do-our-first-works-over" proportions by HamdenRice entitled:  "Most of you have no idea what Martin Luther King actually did"

With the continued twisting of Dr. King's legacy, reducing him to a, "not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character" kinda brother, HamdenRice rightfully puts American terrorism on blast.  Having been born in the Jim Crow South two years after Brown v. Board, raised there until 1974 and subsequently getting my "higher learning" at an HBCU there until 1978 - this piece really hit home:

The reason I'm posting this is because there were dueling diaries over the weekend about Dr. King's legacy, and there is a diary up now (not on the rec list but on the recent list) entitled, "Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Dream Not Yet Realized." I'm sure the diarist means well as did the others. But what most people who reference Dr. King seem not to know is how Dr. King actually changed the subjective experience of life in the United States for African Americans. And yeah, I said for African Americans, not for Americans, because his main impact was his effect on the lives of African Americans, not on Americans in general. His main impact was not to make white people nicer or fairer. That's why some of us who are African Americans get a bit possessive about his legacy. Dr. Martin Luther King's legacy, despite what our civil religion tells us, is not color blind. (emphasis mine)

Thank you HamdenRice!  Dr. King's legacy was never - EVER - color blind.  And the continued co-option of it as such - is merely, more white folk, trying to make white folk, feel comfortable with, and unnaccountable for, their seemingly irrevocable,  often-depraved and most assuredly fearful and insecure, "Divine Right"-thinking,  power-mongering, imperialist - terrorism.

From the "no running water" to the "much more under slavery than under freedom, and all of it under some form of racial terrorism, which had inculcated many humiliating behavior patterns" - the writer's background in Virginia sounds very similar to my own South Carolina upbringing.  But I was never sarcastic about what Dr. King had accomplished, because like his father, I personally understood Dr. King's herculean, and ultimately fatal-for-him efforts to try and end (at least as we knew it) "...the terror of living as a black person, especially in the south."  And while he wasn't 100% successful in that regard (as the terror continues, even today) - what he accomplished was, in fact, a far cry from giving "this great speech" and marching.

It wasn't that black people had to use a separate drinking fountain or couldn't sit at lunch counters, or had to sit in the back of the bus...It was that white people, mostly white men, occasionally went berserk, and grabbed random black people, usually men, and lynched them. You all know about lynching. But you may forget or not know that white people also randomly beat black people, and the black people could not fight back, for fear of even worse punishment.

Though I get his meaning in the first sentence, I do have a small quibble with it - having lived it.  While the "main suffering in the south" indeed, "did not come from our inability to drink from the same fountain or ride in the front of the bus" - I think he misses the soul-murdering effects (especially on children) of those, absolutely intended and daily attacks on our dignity; of always seeing one's parents or one's self, being considered some unclean, inhuman animal after which no "civilized" person, in their right mind, would drink.  It does something to your psyche, believe me.

And that back-of-the-bus thing?  Ditto.  I remember riding home from my Black, Catholic school in the 60s, minding my own damned business in the back of the bus (despite the Supreme Court-ordered mandate to desegregate, many southern states ignored it until the Freedom Rides - and they started getting fined), when an older white boy from the white Catholic high school, running up and down the aisle with his friends - stopped, looked at them laughing and then - hawked up a big, green glob of snot, and spat on me.  I froze, first in roiling anger and disgust, but within seconds, as I watched it run down the right strap of my green, plaid jumper uniform - embarrassment and yes, fear, quickly took hold.  Even though we were s'posed to be free, I knew I couldn't retaliate because:  1) all eyes from the "white section" were on me, 2) he was white and way, bigger than me, and 3) I was afraid of what the repercussions would be at home, or at school if I hit his ass.  So I stayed put, fighting back the tears until my stop.
 
I needn't have worried about the home front though.  My, by-then-divorced Mama, struggling to ensure we got the "best education" possible - wasn't havin' it.  When I came in the door crying, she called me in the kitchen to ask what was wrong.  And between those choking sobs (during which you can barely catch your breath), I pointed to the glob, now crusty from being exposed to the air, and said, through a fresh flod of tears, "One of those white boys from Bishop England (he was wearing their uniform) spat on me!"   She asked me, her voice rising, "Then what did you do?!"   Hoping to, at least, keep my ass out of the sling, I responded, "Nothin' - cuz I know I'm not s'posed to be fightin'."  She got mad as hell, saying, "I'm gonna call that damned school, cuz nobody's spittin' on my child and gettin' away with it!"  She did - they did nothing.  I was in the 6th grade!  And while I felt so loved and protected by her efforts, I not only got, how little the emotional well-being of a little Black girl mattered to white folk - I saw, how my Mama's standing up for me meant even less to them.

So while the writer is dead-on with the second sentence about lynching, I think it extremely important we not forget how effective, long-standing, emotional terrorism is as well (Baldwin also wrote about that!).

So please don't tell me that Martin Luther King's dream has not been achieved, unless you knew what racial terrorism was like back then and can make a convincing case you still feel it today. If you did not go through that transition, you're not qualified to say that the dream was not accomplished.

Seeing as I "knew what racial terrorism was like back then" (to include the KKK purportedly meeting upstairs over the Edward's 5-and-dime around the corner from our rented house downtown; my Grandmama's house being mysteriously burned to the ground out on the Island; my Daddy having to engage in many of those "humiliating practices in order to prevent the random, terroristic, berserk behavior of white people" - at times, in the presence of his children and particularly his son), and - because I "can make a convincing case" that I definitely "still feel it today" here, in "the belly of the beast" - I think I'm qualified to say, unequivocally, that the dream was not accomplished.

And while the knowledge of racial terrorism remains a reality for plenty of us, these days it seems, making a "convincing case you still feel it today" is purely relative and matters not in the big picture (unless of course, you unwaveringly know, like the Freedom Riders of old, what you're "willing to ride (and die) for").

Once the beating was over, we were free.

A hundred times - Yes!   In our hearts, souls and minds, we were freer than we'd ever been before, from American terrorism, which propelled us even further toward our rightful place as citizens in this country we built, by the sweat of our brow.  But, if one takes the statement literally - Fannie Lou Hamer might have been the last Black woman, sterilized without her knowledge and consent (she was not), nor would she have had to deliver this speech (video) to the DNC in 1964; the descendants of Henrietta Lacks (video), some medically uninsured, wouldn't STILL be waiting for some kind of recompense for the universal use, and profitting from, of her HeLa Cells which have saved countless lives; Medgar, Malcolm, Martin, along with a host of others, would have lived well into their old age; there'd have been no need to fight for Affirmative Action; we would not currently have, the highest unemployment and imprisonment rates that we do; we would not today, have a toothless Congressional Black Caucus (some of whom are ex-Freedom Riders!), getting rich like the white fat cats (both legally and illegally), while their constituents still live in poverty and poor housing; etc., etc, etc.

It wasn't the Civil Rights Act, or the Voting Rights Act or the Fair Housing Act that freed us. It was taking the beating and thereafter not being afraid. So, sorry Mrs. Clinton, as much as I admire you, you were wrong on this one. Our people freed ourselves and those Acts, as important as they were, were only white people officially recognizing what we had done.

No, it wasn't any of those acts that freed our hearts, souls and minds, but we'll just have to agree to disagree with what Hillary Clinton (whom I used to admire) said.  As Joseph A. Califano Jr., Lyndon Johnson's special assistant for domestic affairs from 1965 to 1969, said in 2008 - "It Took a Partnership."

All that being said however (I know, I was kinda full) - I salute HamdenRice, for not allowing the white-wash to continue by putting his finger smack-dab on the pulse of Dr. King's achievements.

Look, I know this piece is link-heavy, but I thought it was necessary to illustrate how Black folk have endured a shit-load of American terrorism - and continue to.  Read them at your leisure but please - do, at least, watch the videos.

But, we are certainly not alone.  Even those immigrants who came here on the ship, instead of in the belly of it (and who insist, now, "On Being White and Other Lies,") - have also suffered at the hands of that pesky, American exceptionalism with which, I suspect, we will be inundated tomorrow on the 10th anniversary of 9/11.

I stumbled upon a six-part series on You Tube awhile ago entitled, "Violence:  An American Tradition."  I'm posting Part 1 - but as the disclaimer says on each part, "Caution:  Contains scenes that may be disturbing to young or sensitive viewers" - because it, and the other five parts - are not for the faint of heart!:



I've been trying not to watch much TV at all these days, and I'll certainly not be watching any between now and tomorrow.  Because, I know I won't be able to stomach all the government/Hollywood hypocrisy, mourning the almost 3,000 killed, while literally and figuratively laying waste - to many, many millions more, both here and abroad.

To Catholic Charities: "What Would Jesus Do?"

Last month, I talked to my friend Eric Sheptock, the homeless - homeless advocate whose story I began to tell back in April.  After catching up, we talked about DC's same-sex marriage amendment that passed its second vote in the DC Council just two days ago.  I'd asked his permission to repost his literal, "Man on the Street" perspectives on the amendment, Catholic Charities, homelessness and the politics of it all in DC.  But procrastinator that I am - I didn't keep my word (Sorry Eric!).

Now that the 30-day clock is ticking for Congress to sign-off on the amendment and make it law - or not, I thought I'd share a little history from someone who will be personally affected if Catholic Charities decides NOT to do what Jesus would.

~#~

Catholic Charities Pimps DC Council Again, This Time Over Gay Marriage
By Erick Sheptock
(Posted November 13, 2009)  

What do a Catholic Charities homeless shelter and gay marriage have in common? Some would venture to guess that gay men want the right to identify as women and sleep in female shelters and that butch lesbians want the right to sleep in male shelters. That would be a very well-informed guess. I've witnessed gay men checking into female shelters, though I've yet to see a butch lesbian check into a male shelter. Such rights exist in DC homeless shelters already.

However, there is a new and strange twist (no pun intended) to the fight for gay rights. I received the news over dinner last night (before it even hit the airwaves) that Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Washington, DC is considering the possibility of not doing any more business with the city of Washington if the gay marriage bill is passed. Being that the news has hit the airwaves at this point and you can get the story by going on-line, I'll take some time to give you a little of the background on relations between Catholic Charities and DC Government as well as the low-down on the mayor -- the parts of the story that the media won't tell you.

In March I did a blog post about several shelters having been threatened. (See below where I've re-posted it.) It was believed by the homeless community at that time that DC Mayor Adrian Fenty wanted to close ALL DC homeless shelters before leaving office in January of 2011. Then, the mayor was heard suggesting that homeless people who are not from DC go back to where they came from. (You can read about that in my September post entitled: "DC Mayor Tries To Rid City of Homeless".) In lieu of all of the reasons that the mayor has given the homeless to think that he wants them to just get out of town, it behooves the mayor to proactively prove otherwise. No matter how many layers of authority and contracts lie between the mayor and those who actually close the shelters, the mayor will still be implicated in the closure. He is still ultimately responsible. It is, therefore, in Mayor Fenty's best interest to actively prevent any shelter closures, especially at this time of year. He must use every weapon in his arsenal to come to the rescue of DC's homeless. Failure is not an option. Even if Catholic Charities shuts down all city operations, the mayor will be who everyone looks to for answers.

Catholic Charities is a different story altogether. Some believe that Catholic Charities is in dire straights and is using the gay marriage bill to suck more money out of the city. But before I explain the correlation between the gay marriage bill and the homeless shelters, I'll explain how Catholic charities likes to pimp the city.

The news came out on September 28th of this year that $12 million would be slashed from DC Government's Homeless Services budget. All homeless service providers were, in turn, ordered to cut 30% from their budget for FY 2010. Catholic Charities representatives attended a hearing in front of DC Councilman Tommy Wells on October 5th and stated that they could not continue to operate with one-third of their budget having been slashed. They threatened to shut down all of their city shelters, which would have resulted in the loss of about 2,000 shelter beds. The city scrambled to find the funds to keep the shelters open. Within 3 days the mayor found $11 million and the shelters were saved. He thereby averted a lot of major lawsuits due to hypothermia deaths.

However, this showed Catholic Charities that they are in a position to do a power play on the city. If this latest development is any indication, Catholic Charities is not going to let the city forget that they -- and not the city government -- hold the cards when it comes to social services in the city. When I referred to Catholic Charities as having pimped the city during conversations in October, it was blown off as being nothing but hype. In the articles about this latest move, various council members have weighed in on this issue of being pimped by Catholic Charities. It's too obvious to ignore at this point. I told you so.

The story goes like this:

The DC Council has been working on a gay marriage bill, which they expect to pass next month. While the bill makes certain exemptions for religious organizations, it doesn't make exemptions for businesses. Churches don't have to perform gay marriages or allow their space to be used for gay marriages. However, businesses are not allowed to discriminate against gays in any way, shape, form or fashion. They must serve gay patrons and must extend employee benefits to the gay partners of their employees. Catholic Charities, being a non-profit, is an uncanny marriage of the two -- a church and a business. They seek to assert their religious beliefs as reasons for them not to have to abide by the gay marriage bill as it pertains to businesses. They also claim that the increased cost of employee benefits justifies them opting out of city contracts due to the increased cost of those benefits having not been figured into the contracts at the time of the signing. Catholic charities is seriously considering not doing business with the city any more. If they were to make good on this threat, thousands of DC's most vulnerable citizens would suffer. That makes it rather selfish of Catholic charities to opt out of their city contracts. (As a quick aside, I must say that I told the person who first informed me of this situation with Catholic Charities that I feel obligated to remain a homeless advocate, in spite of me not getting paid for it, and that my reason is that I'd be letting a lot of people who look up to me down if I were to quit now.)

Let's also bear in mind that Catholic Charities receives city funding. This alone obligates them to lay aside any religious beliefs and to continue to deliver services -- secularly, as a non-profit and not as a church. My statement is not without precedent, that precedent having been set in the Central Union Mission (CUM) case. Central Union Mission sought to move to the historic and city-owned Gales School. With CUM being Christian-based, they were told that they could not acquire the Gales School unless they lifted the religious requirements. That is to say that they couldn't make anyone pray or attend chapel services as a requirement for residing at the shelter. Neither could they make or enforce any other religious policies such as not allowing people to smoke cigarettes. CUM is still bargaining with the city for the Gales School; but, they know full well that they must lighten up on the religious requirements in order for this deal to move forward. With Catholic charities receiving city funds, they can expect the same type of treatment.

The crux of the issue is whether Catholic Charities is more of a church or more of a business. (I can't help but think of a related ethnic joke.) Should they be exempt from honoring the gay rights law due to being a religious organization or be obligated to obey such a law due to them being a business and receiving city funding?????

While people ponder that question, I'd like to throw a possible solution out there. There has been conversation between homeless advocates and DC Government about the homeless community running the shelters. This too is not without precedent. The CCNV (Community for Creative Non-Violence) Shelter in downtown DC is run by homeless people. No one gets paid to work there. The shelter runs entirely on donations, with the building being owned by the city. The building was actually wrested from the Reagan administration by homeless people who were operating under the leadership of Mitch Snyder.

This conversation needs to be picked up and become a bit more serious. Furthermore, the city should actually pay the homeless to run the shelters. They should transfer the money that they would've given to Catholic Charities to the homeless who would run the shelters. The homeless would be willing to run the shelters with the reduced budget that Catholic Charities cried about in October. Furthermore, it would serve to empower the homeless -- to instill in them a can-do attitude. This alone would lead to a substantial decrease in homelessness. Just something to think about.

~#~

For more of Eric's thoughts on this, here's a link to his most recent post:  On the Clock with Eric Sheptock: Have a Heart For the Homeless -- Raising Awareness on a Social Justice Issue

DC Homeless living - and dying - at the feet of power

From: Eric Sheptock Sent: Monday, June 08, 2009 5:14 PM To: undisclosed recipients: Subject: Fw: SICK HOMELESS WOMAN DIES IN FRONT OF CCNV ON 6/7A homeless woman who was living with a certain illness died while sitting on a bench in front of the CCNV Shelter on June 7th. DC Government failed to house her, even though she was one of the "most vulnerable". This situation has raised the ire of the homeless community. A memorial service will be held for her this evening from 6 to 7 PM at the corner of 2nd and D streets, NW in front of the sidewalk bench where she died. That is the corner of the CCNV building that is nearest the 3rd Street tunnel. This matter will be brought up at the ICH meeting, which will be held where she often ate at Thrive DC. I hope there is high attendance this evening.

I got this email from my homeless-advocate friend, Eric Sheptock yesterday. During the many times I met with him to talk for the paper I was writing, I've either driven past, or sat in my car talking to Eric outside that bench at the Community for Creative Nonviolence (CCNV). So much so, that other residents at the shelter took to teasing him, calling me his "new girlfriend." That a woman died on that bench, right outside that shelter is not only appalling, but IMHO, very telling - considering the mayor's puported drive to provide Permanent Supportive Housing to DC's "most vulnerable" through the Housing First program.
When I graduated from my small, liberal arts HBCU in 1978, I moved to DC - the first "big city" I'd ever actualy lived in. I fell in love with it - still am. During that time, there was another advocate/activist who reminds me a lot of Eric for his outspokenness. His name was Mitch Snyder. His advocacy, like Eric's, was instrumental in getting help for the many people about whom I can only say, "There but for the grace..." Mr. Snyder has since died but I'm convinced, he is reincarnated in one, Eric Sheptock. NPR aired this piece on my friend today: "A Voice for the Homeless." Like a mother hen, I was there with him and Ms. Fessler during the first part of this interview but missed the follow-ups at The Church of the Epiphany and Thrive DC because I came home on summer break. Eric made sure to call me today though - he wanted to be sure I wouldn't miss it! I'm so very proud of him. While FLOTUS made a much-ballyhooed, one-day visit to Miriam's Kitchen to feed the homeless shortly after moving into the Big House, it'll be interesting to see what kind of sustained influence she can have on the daily lives of the homeless living in the shadows of her shiny, new home. Eric's hopeful - I'm not. As for the Changeling, well, never mind.

"Homeless Advocate, thy name is Eric Sheptock!"

Finally finished my final paper for my Journalism of Identity class. It's due later today. It was supposed to be 1400-1600 words on someone else other than myself. I chose a wonderfully bright and funny young man who happens to be homeless and living in D.C. His name is Eric Sheptock.

There are so many intriguing layers to this guy! With only a high school education, he has managed to become an expert on the homeless situation in Washington, DC. With a mind like a steel trap, he can quote homeless facts and figures, dates and places and of course, the many names and titles associated with the numerous non-profit and governmental agencies with whom he has dealt. He has it all in his head! Amazing I tell you, just amazing!

After hanging out with him over time, I realized there was no way possible I could write his story in 1400-1600 words! Here is Part I:

“Um, excuse me Ma’am? I’m sorry, we need the chairs.”

Confused, I looked up into the smiling, pecan-tanned face of the young Cosi cashier, who it seemed, had just rung our sandwiches up an hour or so ago inside.

“We’re closing now and we have to put the chairs away” she said softly, motioning toward the other chairs already stacked near the door leading into the restaurant. Rattled, my eyes quickly darted to the apparently, long-empty tables around us. As I looked toward the sky, I noticed the sun had become low, and fat, and warmly orange as it began its slow descent toward the horizon. The bright sunshine, that had forced me to fish my sunglasses from my purse when we first sat down, had waned and there was a slight chill in the air.

Initially suspecting I was having a senior moment, I stood to surrender my now-warmed seat as I asked the cashier, “Is it really that late?”
She laughed out loud this time, revealing twin rows of perfectly white teeth as she said, “Yes Ma’am, it is!”

It was then that I realized, I’d been sitting on their patio near the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library downtown for well over four hours - talking to Eric Sheptock, homeless advocate extraordinaire.

I’d been trying to decide who the topic of my final Journalism of Identity paper would be for some time. Meeting Eric that first Sunday in April was one of those, all-the-planets-aligning kind of things one never expects to happen, but certainly welcomes when it does.

A Washington Post story last month, about the increased use of cell phones and computers by many of the District’s estimated 14,537 homeless people, linked to a blog, “On the Clock with Eric Sheptock,” hosted at Streats.tv. Following the link, I discovered some of the most informative, often hilarious accounts of homelessness and homeless advocacy I’d ever read. The self-described, “Homeless Advocate, G.A.B. (Government Agitating Bigmouth),” dishes out a true, Man on the Street (no pun intended) style of advocacy that kept me up all night reading each post -- from first, to last.

At the end of the last post, surprisingly, I read, “Finally, I was quite impressed to find out that a certain young lady named Meghan who attends Georgetown U. has been following my blog for 2 months and has read ALL OF MY BLOG POSTS. Gotta love her. She's definitely interested in the issue of homelessness.”

A smart, unassuming young lady in her twenties, Meghan and I were taking our second class together. Thinking this was no coincidence, I ended my rather lengthy comment to Eric’s post writing, “And this must be your week for Georgetown students! Though we'd never discussed this before, I am a graduate student there as well and get this - Meghan is in one of my classes!!! I'll have to tell her you gave her a nod here on the post.”

The next day in class, I told Meghan about her shout-out. Smiling, she shared she’d actually spoken to Eric several times for a project in another of her classes this semester. Delighted, I asked if she could introduce us because I was kicking around the idea of homelessness in D.C. as a topic for two final projects as well. She said she’d contact him and let me know.

After a flurry of emails between the three of us over the course of two days, the date was set, Sunday at 3 p.m. at the entrance of the MLK library.

As I entered the glass doors, I saw Meghan sitting in the lobby with a slender, goateed Black man of about 35 or so with a baseball cap turned backward on his head, wearing a T-shirt partially covered by a hoodie, jeans and sneakers. He could have been any of the many young men one sees walking the streets of the city. As Meghan made the introductions, I looked into the doe-like brown eyes of a clean-shaven and, contrary to what folk project about the homeless -- clean-smelling Eric Sheptock.

An unseasonably warm and beautiful day, we took our conversation outside to Cosi’s restaurant where we could enjoy the sun and talk freely. After about 15-20 minutes in “getting to know you” chat, Meghan stood up, saying she was leaving so Eric and I could talk, but not before taking some pictures of the three of us together. She hugged us both goodbye and headed for the Metro.

As I turned to Eric, I only got a chance to say, “So,…” before he launched into his advocacy-speak. I interrupted, telling him I’d gotten how vociferous an advocate he was for the homeless from the blog and from Meghan, but for right now, I just wanted to know more about Eric and how he became the homeless guy.

Having to talk about himself seemed to throw him for a loop - at first. Searching for a place to begin he said, “A lot of people think all homeless people are drug addicts and that’s why they’re homeless. Actually, particularly for me, it’s the other way around. I became addicted to crack cocaine after having become homeless.”

As it turns out, young Eric Sheptock had lived a pretty good life as a foster child - after a decidedly rocky beginning that is. At six years-old, his adopted-mom told him the story of young Eric Gooden, born on March 15, 1969 to two young parents unfit to raise him. After having been found alone and near-death in an Atlantic City, New Jersey hotel room with his head bashed in and covered in blood, he was put into the foster care system - at eight months old.

Removing his baseball cap and leaning over to show me the deep, disfiguring scars on the back of his head, he said matter-of-factly, “Since I was obviously a baby, I don’t really remember much about it, but my foster-mom told me what happened. She said I had three craniotomies as a result.”

Temporarily placed with an elderly Black woman whose husband was very ill and in a nursing home, Eric doesn’t remember a whole lot about the time he spent with her, but says he was happy there.

“I was an only child and she was kind of old, but I do remember us talking a lot. I remember her taking me to Atlanta to visit an “Aunt Joanie” and I remember an “Aunt Rose” who lived in New York.”

He would stay with his foster-mom until he was five years-old. By that time, her husband had died and she was frantically trying to get him legally adopted before she died too. She was successful. By the time he was five years old, young Eric Gooden had legally become Eric Jonathan Sheptock (“I got to choose my middle name for myself,” he told me proudly). And a new life, with a new family began in Chester, New Jersey.

Joanne and Rudy Sheptock, were white, God-fearing Pentecostal Christians with seven children of their own and three adopted children, which now included Eric. They lived for a year in Chester, then Rudy, Eric’s favorite parent, moved them all to Peapack, New Jersey where he was the Superintendent of Buildings and Grounds for four schools in the borough of Mountain Lakes.

Their new home had been the library of the convalescent hospital. Sitting on five acres of land surrounded by woods, the three-story mansion with 13 bedrooms, seven bathrooms, two dining rooms, a library and an above-ground pool with a barn and corral, provided plenty of room for the growing Sheptock family. They would live there for 10 years until the family moved to Interlachen, Florida in March of 1985. "By the time we moved to Peapack in 1975, my parents had adopted a lot more kids!. When I graduated high school in June of 1987, they had a combined total of 28 - but some of us had started to move out by then.”

Rudy Sheptock was the family disciplinarian. At 6’1” and 220 pounds, he was an imposing, but always honest and fair figure to Eric and his siblings. Joanne on the other hand, was not seen in the same light. As a matter of fact, Eric has not spoken to her since he left home in 1985. And the feelings seem mutual -- he learned of his beloved father’s death on September 13, 2000 from an old supervisor of his in Florida.

Stay tuned for Part II - “From Happy to Homeless.”