January 16, 2024 • 60 mins
This week, Theo holds a round table discussion with some of LA's most prominent activists to examine the history of mutual aid, and how it stands in stark contrast to the concepts of charity and philanthropy. Melissa Acedera, Zen Sekizawa, and Neil Blakemore weigh in for part one of a comprehensive look at what activists in LA are doing to start a revolution.
Follow Melissa: https://www.polospantry.org/
and https://www.melissaacedera.com/
Follow Zen: jtownaction.com
Follow Neil: https://neilblakemore.substack.com/
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Previously on Weedian House, I'm seeing more and more of note,
not just Weekend Warrior. I'm going to go to March
because I can say I went to the March, but
I'm like, hey, we need to actually like do something. Clearly,
what's happening there is really broken. What's happening here is
just as no.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
I'm when I had the pertment we were today only
a thousand dollars.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
He just didn't care evicted us. He came out.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Telling us when he gave his eviction, I didn't want
to read you guys.
Speaker 4 (00:28):
And that's see, Tollissa.
Speaker 5 (00:29):
If reporters are not allowed to just be there to
watch what's going on, you know, how do you trust
what they say?
Speaker 4 (00:36):
Later on Welcome back to Weedian House, I'm your host,
Theo Henderson. Before we delve into today's topic, I want
to take a moment to thank my listeners. One new
(00:58):
listener reached out to me from New Zealand. A big
thanks to Anissa Lahonta for recommending a guest to join
my show. Another shout out I like to do is
to DJ Palmerville, who also sent a recommendation and I'm
looking forward to exploring as well. It is so gratifying
to know there are people listening, paying attention and offering suggestions.
(01:21):
I ask my unhoused listeners to reach out to me
at www dot weedyonhouse dot com and submit your encouraging
words for recommendations. We've got a lot to talk about
this week on a topic so big we need two
episodes to crack it wide open the differences between mutual aid,
charity and philanthropy. But first, you know the drill. Let's
(01:48):
get into some house news. Our leading story today is
a weather advisory for the northern part of California. Temperatures
in Los Angeles from January ninth to January eighteenth are
ranging from a high of sixty six degrees to a
low of forty three degrees with high winds. It is
important to point out hypothermia is the leading cause of
(02:11):
death for unhoused people. Due to these types of temperatures,
house people can throw on a sweater or turn up
the thermostad for the thousands of people who live on
the streets, cold weather and high winds put your life
at risk. On December twenty sixth, a one year old
unhoused child pass away of hypothermia and an unhoused man
(02:34):
named John died of the same cause on January ninth
in South la In closely related news across the country,
families with children had to leave New York shelters as
of last week. You may not be surprised to hear
that the people who run the City of Los Angeles
are not prepared to protect their unhoused constituents this year either.
(02:56):
As of this recording, there are eleven shelters open in
the Law Central's area, with three hundred and eighty eight
beds available. Keep in mind they are currently over seventy
five thousand house people in the same area. If you're
looking to get connected with one of these shelters, this
is what was available when we recorded on January ninth,
(03:19):
and numbers may have changed since the time of the recording.
Forty four beds at Volunteers of America address forty five
one hundred and fifty sixtieth Street in West Lancaster, California.
The population they serve is co ed thirty five beds
at Advancing Communities Together. It is at thirty eight six
(03:39):
hundred and twenty six to ninth Street in East Palmdale, California,
only open from seven pm to seven am on weekdays
and twenty four hours on Saturday and Sunday. Population served
co ED fifty beds at home at last eighty seven
sixty eight South Broadway, Los Angeles. Population served women eleven
(04:03):
beds at Assured Lifestyle Housing. Ninety five nineteen South Figaroa,
Los Angeles. Population served co ed nine beds at Assured
Lifestyle Housing. Seven hundred West Florence, Los Angeles population served
co ed forty one beads at First to served. Seventeen
(04:24):
eighteen West Vernon Avenue, Los Angeles. Population served co ED
sixty beds at Bryant Temple Community Development. Fifty five hundred
South Hoover Street, Los Angeles. Population served men thirty two
beds at Abundant Blessings. Eleven thirty three South Ardmore Avenue,
(04:45):
Los Angeles. Population served men fifty five beds at New
Reflections eighty three eleven Southwestern Avenue, Los Angeles. Population served
men eleven beds at which Ye First Day twelve four
hundred and twenty six Whittier Boulevard, Whittier, California. Population served
(05:07):
coed and forty beds at First to Serve. Seven hundred
and two West Anaheon Street, Long Beach, California, population served COED.
To connect with any of these services, call to one
one or one eight hundred five four eight sixty forty seven.
(05:27):
You can also go to LASA dot org went to
shelter for this full list, or call Lossa's shelter hotline
at two one three six eight three thirty three thirty three.
It's no secret that the city is not prepared to
protect the unhoused during major whatever events like this. These
shelters are all that's available to service the population of
(05:48):
over seventy five thousand. If you go to one of
these shelters and want to tell us your experience, we
in House wants to hear about it. Send us a
message at www dot weedianhouse dot com Our next story.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and the LPD ejected trans
(06:10):
and house people of color in West Hollywood on Tuesday,
January ninth, twenty twenty four. Howse LGBQTIA plus community members
have complained about the unhoused community, citing fights and other
nefarious activities. Weedian House stopped by on Sunday, January seventh
unhoused residents, pointing out the hostility and unwelcome behavior one
(06:32):
complain of an illegal arrest and police brutality by the
Los Angeles Sheriff's Department. This is a developing story. Weedian
House will follow up later. And finally, this week's Unhoused
News exclusive is with Aaron Flores, former environmental compliance inspector
turned videographer. This interview was recorded last November after an
(06:57):
event I attended where doctor Cornell West spoke with local
activists at a fundraising event for his campaign. And don't worry,
my interview with Cornell West will be included in an
upcoming episode. Aaron and I had a fascinating talk where
let's just say, we don't always agree. It's a longer one,
but we'll be sharing the first part here. Hello.
Speaker 6 (07:24):
My name is Aaron Flores. I used to work as
an environmental compliance inspector for La Sanitation. I did the
job for about three years, and I decided last July
to leave a very financially comfortable job that put me
in many ethical conflicts. I decided to leave that to
(07:45):
try to be a little bit more consistent in my character,
especially as someone who thinks constantly about these things.
Speaker 4 (07:52):
Let's start from the beginning, because this is a story
that really needs to be told.
Speaker 6 (07:56):
So I worked as an ECI or environment compliance inspector
for the Liveability Services Division, which is a fairly nascent division,
and I actually got hired as an emergency hire, so
they hired me pretty quickly. I filed an application during
summer and I began training in about August, so that's
(08:22):
very very fast for a city employee. Usually city employees
have to wait a long time. Started training, I didn't
really know what exactly I was getting into, but I
had an idea. We studied the municipal Code of fifty
six eleven.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
What is fifty six eleven.
Speaker 6 (08:38):
So it's basically rules of the sidewalk and there's been
a few revisions of it. I think in twenty sixteen
they like added a few revisions. When you first read it,
it's kind of like a little bit vague, it's kind
of just refers to just anything. And then later on
it starts it feels like it begins to be a
(08:59):
little bit more targeted, maybe towards the unhoused or you know,
just very specific legal circumstances for the unhoused. But as
an ECI, I abide by that municipal code so I
can't do anything outside of my jurisdiction, but I do
follow these set principles, and many of the ones that
(09:21):
we had enforced or asked police enforcement to enforce, would
be eighty A, which is the American Disabilities Act, which
requires I think it's three feet of walkway space on
any sidewalk. And the other one would be ingress egress,
which is you cannot be within ten feet of an
entrance or exit which includes a driveway or a doorway.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
When you were being trained, did they mention the tense
relationship would be dealing with the unhoused or how to
deal with that or what was their training on that?
Because you were dealing with human beings and their belongings,
you probably gathered if I started rummaging through your things
or going and throwing your things in the trash, you
want to be unstendedly upset. So how did they work
(10:04):
work that into your trend?
Speaker 6 (10:06):
Well, I guess it would be on field training. You
read something on paper and it looks a little bit
more convenient, but obviously, as an ECI, it's just being
the bearer bad news. And even though it's a very
difficult thing to do, except you know, especially for someone
who's cognizant or conscious and concerned about their ethical life.
But when you're being paid like eighty thousand dollars projected
(10:29):
into one hundred thousand within I don't know, six years
of service, it you know, begins to be a little
bit you kind of compromise, at least in the beginning,
you know, just like characters in Dostoyevsky's novels, you know,
you can only evade guilt for so long until it
really begins to be sort of crippling.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
Well, I remember that as the Median House was in
it innascency, we were out on the field in covering
the sweeps to educate people, and we ran across when
you was employed, and we definitely were not the most
polite or you know, it was kind of a tense
situation because of the issues there. What was going through
your mind when you've seen this a bunch show up
(11:12):
with a camera and microphone. What was your initial reaction
because a lot of the the ecis initially they were surprised,
some of them became very angry, some of them became
very confrontational, believing or not, and which shocked a lot
of us. Like we didn't expect the type of reaction.
We talked that it was going to be sastoic, but
(11:32):
then they started becoming vigdictive. So what was your initial
reaction when we first came up on the same.
Speaker 6 (11:38):
Usually for me, I just I'm expecting to be filmed,
so I make sure I crossed my t's and dot
my eyes. So sometimes, you know, ECIS would get in
trouble for, as you said, sometimes talking directly to people
or to anyone you know who's quotable. Yeah, we would
(11:59):
get in trouble for you know, not following standard operating procedures.
Some of our procedures included like taking photographic evidence, and
there were, at least in the very beginning of LSD,
people would often take shortcuts when people weren't looking. Oftentimes,
some of the justifications that are used are finding urine
(12:22):
or fequal matter inside of encampment, And an encampment is
a little bit different from homelessness because an encampment usually
entels like a tent or some type of structure. But anyways,
some of the shortcuts would be justifying throwing away a
lot of the encampment for a year and bottle that
(12:44):
might be contained within something and oftentimes the justification for
throwing away these things would be cross contamination. But you know,
there has to be a justification behind every single thing
that we do because as an inspector, are job is
to care for the health and safety of the public.
(13:06):
And this is probably the limiting point of where we
start getting into disagreements because I do believe that there
are health hazards that are produced in encampments.
Speaker 4 (13:18):
Well, I have a lot to say about fat. During
our next Unhoused News segment, we'll continue that conversation and
I will challenge Aaron on the house views of encampments.
And that's in House News for this week. Up next,
we get to talk to the people at the forefront
(13:39):
of the LA activist community and get into the nitty
gritty around what it really takes to have a consistent
and positive impact on the community. Stay with us, Welcome
back to well in House. I gave you a homework
(14:01):
assignment at the end of our last episode, and it
was what is the difference between mutual aid charity and philanthropy.
In the next two episodes, we'll be exploring the issues fully.
These three activists are essential to the conversation we're going
to have today. We're going to pull the curtain back
of a bit of history, experience, and laughter to keep
(14:22):
our wits about us. In a discombobulated world, time does
not permit the awesomeness of all of our guests and
what they mean to the city of Los Angeles. Here's
my roundtable talk with Melissa Asadero, Zen Sakizawa, and Neil Blakemore. Well,
(14:46):
this is the exciting part of it. All of the
activists here we know each other and we want to
basically have a very educational, fun kind of conversation. And
the studios we have Neil Hello, and Melissa Asadero. Watch
I get this right, Zen Seki sawad I didn't butcher that.
(15:10):
So all of them know me and then in our
own way, and but yet we all have the same
kind of common course in mind and heart and spirit.
So I'm going to touch base with Melissa. She's going
to give us a little bit of a backdrop about
mutual age. Yeah, so Melissa tell us a little bit
about the history of mutual.
Speaker 7 (15:30):
A Well, I think a lot of people feel like
mutual aid is sort of especially if you're new to
it and came into it during the pandemic, that that
was something that kind of just sort of like sprouted
kind of as a response to the pandemic. But this
has been happening for hundreds of years. I started to
research the history of mutual aid because I really wanted
(15:52):
to understand how the areas that were most active in
are predominantly in black and brown communities. And so when
what I found was during the eighteen hundreds, nineteen hundreds,
even like way way back, so mutual aid projects basically
our way for like political participation for a lot of
these groups. The Free African Society actually happened in seventeen
(16:14):
eighty seven. That came about in Philadelphia, and it was
in the summer of seventeen ninety three because there was
an epidemic that had Philadelphia of like yellow fever.
Speaker 4 (16:25):
Their version of COVID nineteen exactly, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 7 (16:28):
See, So there were two black ministers and the founders
of the Free African Society was Richard Allen and Absalom Jones.
So they were one of the first black mutual aid
societies in the US, and so it was just really
kind of a way for them to organize folks who
were dying in like literally on the street, because I
(16:48):
think the city itself begged black residents for help, believing
in correct correctly that they were.
Speaker 4 (16:54):
Immune to the disease. So the racism too within.
Speaker 7 (16:56):
The medicaleah medical racism was targeted right into sort of
black citizens, and so they felt like it was their
duty to basically, you know, support suffering brothers and sisters,
and so they created relief for the sick, sheltering orphans,
transporting and burying the z and so it really was
again like a response to what was happening because they
(17:18):
saw the government wasn't doing anything so commedy. And then
the black mutual aid societies spread rapidly in the early
eighteen hundreds. I think by like the eighteen thirties, one
hundred mutual age societies kind of like explode in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Boston,
New Orleans. And so this kind of kept happening for
like hundreds of years. You go forward to eighteen thirty five,
(17:42):
the New York Committee of Vigilance was actually founded when
Frederick Douglas escaped from enslavement in eighteen thirty eight. He
fled to New York City, and I think a lot
of self emancipation was dangerous and terrifying for people. So
you had no money and no home, and often white
kidnappers and police were hunting you down. So so uh,
(18:03):
Predic Douglass and a bunch of other black scholars and
folks created support for folks who were running away. So
it was just kind of a practical abolition for them.
Speaker 4 (18:14):
M hmm.
Speaker 7 (18:15):
It's like for folks we are kind of like newly emancipated.
Back then, they knew the barriers for other kind of folks,
recently freed folks like you know, what you can do
where you can hide, and so they created these these
mutual aid networks and then fast forward to underground railroad.
Speaker 4 (18:35):
So it's just again like.
Speaker 7 (18:36):
I'm trying to create like a longer arc of the
timeline of the work that we're doing. So, I mean,
I have so much more. There's so much here, Like
early nineteen hundred's Chinese consolidated benevolent association. So you have
to remember through the context historical contact that's happening at
the time. So you have to remember, like you know,
(18:57):
Chinese were kind of like building the railroads and all
that stuff. And so I think for us as black
and brown folks like we just have always been outside
of the system, and so we create systems of care
within that network. I'm trying to encourage folks to think
beyond what you know, like kind of the system that
we create and so like mteal aid has always been
(19:17):
born out of that.
Speaker 4 (19:19):
Also too, if I interject this that we have a
historical blinderss because the historical leaders of the past, we
are kind of whitewashed and we don't really talk about,
for example, those revolutionary type of ideas because at that
period of time it was outside of the way. It
was not a normal practice. It was and we don't
(19:39):
we kind of I don't want to say minimize it,
but we don't really emphasize it's dangerous, it was against
the law, it was the death penalty for any slave
to read always those kinds of things that was going
on there that if you had escaped and they got
the slave catcher, you remember as how the police have
been formed. All of these things has its underpinnings from
(20:00):
these kind of systems. We don't give it a second glance,
so we really don't take a second to really emphasize
this is where this comes from. But I want to
jump in then into the conversation, hie yays. Then we
have known each other for some time, and I was
wondering what is your insights on mutual aid, philanthropy and charity,
(20:23):
because we've had some excellent conversations. I just want to
just capture it, just a slice of those moments with
our audience.
Speaker 5 (20:30):
Yeah, well, thanks for having me here. It's so cool
to be with Melissa and Neil and you and yeah,
we've known each other for a really long time, almost.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
Eight years now.
Speaker 4 (20:42):
Talk about jazz.
Speaker 5 (20:43):
Okay, So most of you've known us for our power
ups that we have every week, say mutual Aid program
we've been doing every Saturday from two to five pm
for the last three years, yes, almost three years coming up.
Speaker 4 (20:59):
Yes, I get excited when we talked about the Mutual
eight because we first started, we were feeling our way
into the situation. And I remember when we first started,
we were on the side on the street on the
corner of Judge John Isio a little Tokyo and at
Thurimi Plaza, and we knew what we wanted to do.
(21:23):
We knew the crisis was real, we knew people needed help.
But you know, there was a context there was things
going on that you know, the residents of the the
trumy Plaza they looked on at the kind of side
eye you know, just say, charity. What was your first
expressions when we first.
Speaker 5 (21:40):
Started out our first our first power up was kind
of scary, you know. I think we had one table.
There had been an encampment we started. We started during
pandemic too, and but very different from what you were
talking about.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
I question, hope. So, but yeah, we had.
Speaker 5 (22:03):
One table and we were in the middle of an
encampment in Totyomi Plaza. They're probably like maybe thirty residents there.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
We had asked them.
Speaker 5 (22:13):
Previously a couple of weeks prior if they would be
fine with us coming and doing it, and they were
like okay.
Speaker 4 (22:21):
And yeah.
Speaker 5 (22:23):
It was a lot of trial and error and learning
especially from you THEO, and like understanding really what the
practice of mutual aid is versus charity, Like having people
with their own autonomy talking to them about what their
needs are, versus like, you know, projecting what you think
(22:47):
their needs are for us.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
Like mutual aid is old.
Speaker 5 (22:51):
I mean it's old, like Melissa says, I mean I
think it goes into indigenous cultures, it goes into animals,
it goes into nature. So it's only because of the
systems of white supremacy and imperialism that that has been
extracted out of our lives.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
And we think this is a new thing, you know.
Speaker 5 (23:11):
So yeah, but like it is acknowledging the fact that
if we're not all okay, we're not going to survive.
And I think with like charities, there's a lot of
means testing. Obviously, you have to you have to fit
a certain like stereotype, you have to you know, believe
(23:34):
in God, you have to.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
Not look like you're on drugs or.
Speaker 5 (23:39):
Whatever, and and those things don't acknowledge like what put
these people in these desperate situations in the first place.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
And I think that is the biggest difference of like
charities will address.
Speaker 5 (23:57):
An issue like you're hungry, but mutual aid in its
best form will say, Okay, you're hungry, here's what you
need to survive. Let's talk about why you are hungry.
Let's talk about what put you in this position that
you're hungry. You don't have a house, you know, you're
doing self care stuff, and like you know, like all
(24:18):
these things. Yeah, I think that's the biggest difference for
me is just acknowledging the oppression and the systems that
put you in this certain situation, and not to be
ashamed of it, to just acknowledge it and be conscious
of it.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
And then how do we go from there? How do
you empower yourself from there?
Speaker 5 (24:39):
Like when you don't feel like the victim, you don't
feel ashamed, you should feel pissed, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
You know.
Speaker 4 (24:45):
And I think one of the things images when you
were saying this about the differences between the means testing
of charities and mutual aid. I remember there was a
couple of times that we've had some of the residents
that had moments where they had breaks in reality. Now
usually is you probably know the usually people that see
them get afraid called police. And I really really was
(25:06):
gratified of the way it says, how do we deal
with this because we know that there's going to be
people that are not used to this, what can we
do to make them be safe, be fed, and be
able to come out of whatever they need to. And
that I think is a little bit different than when
we have charities or security or like the bids or
(25:27):
those kind of entities. Because people think you know, running
them away or moving them, They're just going to go
down the block and still have the same end episode.
It's not going to change. And they're coming to those
places to get fed and get seen and be safe.
Because you can be able to get the type of
community to support that, you're truly going to do the
(25:47):
trauma inform care kind of approach. I think, what's what
I think I'm hovering around that idea, but truly looking
at that and looking at dismantling the systems ofcarcoral kind
of incarceration with the care courts is looming large in
California as we speak now. And Neil, Neil, did you
have anything you want to say?
Speaker 2 (26:07):
Yeah, just that I think you're you're talking about treating
people like they're a human being rather than a problem, right,
And I think that that is so important. And I feel,
you know, one thing, in terms of people who are
interested in building movements against these systems of oppression, mutual
aid I think is essential to that because it builds
(26:29):
like resilient communities. And you know, these these electoral organizers
they come in and they get a lot of people
interested in this thing, but then their their movements are brittle,
because they're not built on that kind of reciprocity that
we need if we really want to survive and and
I even survive beyond like you know, whatever happens to
(26:50):
the United States or whatever the next election, but like
we're we're facing an existential crisis that's much bigger than that.
And I think we're gonna we're going to need mutual
aid if we want to get through that.
Speaker 7 (27:00):
I want to add to that because mutual aid and
even kind of grounding the again back to historical contexts.
I love history around social justice movements. We recently had
Cleo Silver's here and Cleo Silver Versus the central organizer
of the Black Panther Parties Free Breakfast Programs, which thought
in Oakland in sixty nine. She was also part of
(27:22):
the Young Lords in the Bronx and really was kind
of the architect of a lot of like actions around
taking back the hospitals and really kind of the medical
system which has been violently racist and harmful and violent
to the black communities. She was recently here and it
(27:44):
was just really really cool to hear her talk about
how she was able to envision a lot of the
work that she did, especially with the Panthers and what
I love about mutual aid it is literally the threat
to the government, Like what we're doing is absolutely a
threat because we show a model that is doable. We're
(28:05):
showing a model that is we're showing we're showing what's possible,
and we're essentially showing folks that, like the government is
not here to take care of us, we take care
of us and really kind of embodying that in the
work that we do. So going back to Cleo Silver's
(28:25):
their free breakfast program was so effective that you know,
like Hoover, who's director of the FBI at the time,
named the Black Panthers really the number one threat to
you know, to the government at the time because they
were able to literally organize thousands of free breakfast to
children across I always say, like forty one cities and
(28:47):
that is massive.
Speaker 4 (28:49):
But also she wants to point out, which is important
which is going on with us, is they tried to
find ways to sabotage that success. Yeah, poisoning food, which
is one of the things when we stink outside the bus,
nobody wants to hear their child we have food poisoning
or poison So that really creates a disquiet or dissension
in the community, which what she says she had to
(29:10):
they had to stop because they were trying to deliberately
harm people and harm people in the community. And that's
simply say the same thing the conversational point. There's nothing
changed here because when we started mutual aids in people
were literally coming and talking about you know, let let
them starve, or or contacting people in the community, not
(29:31):
always in the community, but like people like Kevin de Leone,
or trying to put up a fence, all of these things.
Can you talk a little bit about what kind of
sabotage efforts that went on with the mutual aids there, Like,
for example, we were successfully helping people and they didn't
like that, so they started wanting to eject the residents
out of Tarumy Plaza.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
Oh, you mean just all the opposition that we've just
all the other ship.
Speaker 5 (29:59):
Well, I wanted to to add to what Melissa was
saying about the Black Panther Breakfast program. I think is
really essential to any mutual aid program is there's also
information shared, right, revolutionary theory shared, and I think that
is very very important.
Speaker 3 (30:17):
You know, that's.
Speaker 5 (30:18):
Also a big difference between mutual aid and charity, Like
you have to share that knowledge and historical information and
have people realize like what.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
These systems do.
Speaker 5 (30:35):
And you know it's with that sort of consciousness that
you know, we can build a better system of resistance.
Speaker 4 (30:43):
Right.
Speaker 5 (30:46):
But yeah, like there's a gosh, it's like so much
has happened in the three years. We've only been around
three years, and it seems like yeah, but yeah, you know,
there's a lot of communities made up of many, many
different people. That's saying things very nicely. You know, there's
(31:10):
a lot of classes, and you know, understanding what class
consciousness looks like specifically in Little Tokyo's been really interesting
to see. And but yeah, so we've had, of course,
like the conservative business owners like Rally, the politicians like
Kevin de Leone, and you know sweep the plaza, which
(31:36):
you know was really strange, not strange, it was really
disappointing for me being a longtime community member of Little Tokyo.
And you know, the hypocrisy between like forty one eighteen
and Executive Order nine oh sixty six, like one block
away from toty Umi Plaza, the big sweep that happened
(31:59):
was where people were rounded up and taken to camps.
And it's the same thing. It's the same story of displacement.
It's the same tactics, you know, like you don't know
where you're going, you have to put your stuff in
two bags and go right. And it's just like based
on what nothing. They call the police on us all
the time, they call the security guards on us. We've
(32:21):
been attacked by the bid. We have had just random
people come and start fights with us.
Speaker 3 (32:29):
Yeah, it's been it's been a lot.
Speaker 5 (32:32):
It's also like it's very public what we're doing every
Saturday from two to five. So yeah, there's a lot
of security concerns, you know, and like.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
Like you said, like it is a direct threat to
a lot of people and people are going to react.
Speaker 4 (32:48):
We will be back in a moment with more of
our conversations. Welcome back to Weedian House. Let's take you
right back into my conversation about mutual aid, charity and
philanthropy with Melissa, Neil and Zen. We did a little
(33:11):
bit of the history, but we didn't do the history
of how Polo pantry came into being, and I think
we would be remiss in understanding how did you formulate
that because I think that story needs to be told.
Speaker 7 (33:25):
I feel like I have to meet different versions of
myself and I tell the story differently because it's almost
like you uncover, right, unravel Now that I have more
language with like the work, now that I have more
context historically, now that I have more cultural sort of
like backing and foundation, this is in my blood, Like literally,
(33:48):
this stuff is in my blood. I am from a
lineage of entrepreneurial Filipino women. So if you want to
go back historically, my maternal grandmother ran a Sorry Sorry
store in the Philippines in the eighties and it was
cool because it literally felt like this was marked into
(34:09):
my into my blood because she would literally nag my, my, my,
my lolo, my my grandfather to go and buy produce
in the northern part of the country and would buy
from small farms, from small farmers and bring that back
to the barrio where they live, which is in so Milang.
And you know, she just knew, she she she I'm like,
(34:34):
how do I know this? She just knew that she
wanted to kind of one support the farmers and to
bring healthy food into her community. I'm like, wow, where
did I learn that it is literally like my maternal grandmother.
But even beyond that, her sisters too were all in
some kind of food work. Her her sister Malala Ana,
(34:57):
she runs, she ran, she she's rest. Their souls are
all they're all past.
Speaker 4 (35:02):
Now.
Speaker 7 (35:04):
She married into a family the Santo Says, and they
run the oldest bakery in their bodio, which is over
one hundred years old. Now it's the Smulan Bakery. So
I have her and then their other sister, my Lola,
my Lotta Felly. She's actually the grandmother that I grew
up with here physically, she was the grandmother that I
(35:25):
that I learned to cook from. And my lord who's
also like part of the crew sisters, she would also
cook for for folks. So it's just like now, if
I realize it, I really kind of am just sort
of remembering the things that my family has always done
to take care of their communities. So I just really
(35:45):
kind of brought it to where I am.
Speaker 4 (35:48):
Well, if I may add a little little season to
that conversation, have how we met, Like, oh, yeah, you
had a strong family lineage, jis you were actually working
and working for a time, and I wanted to point
this out because uh, and it's for everyone knows that
I did my podcast when I was living in the park,
(36:10):
and I remember you had reached out to me and
you asked it, I need food, and but the friends
of mine around and you will come. You will work
a full day, you will go and get the food,
and then you will come at night to come to
give me the food. And then from that point on
there was like I would talk to some of them
to come around to get the food, like when we
(36:32):
met the mother with the ten kids, and you know,
other families and things like that, and it really is
you know, at the time, you know, Polos pantries was
a distant eye.
Speaker 7 (36:42):
But yeah, it wasn't even it wasn't even like but
it wasn't even.
Speaker 4 (36:46):
I didn't I clearly remember you said. You one one day,
you said, you know, I think I'm going to leave
my job. You just standing out of nowhere, and I
was like, okay, I'm grabbing the food like and then
she says, you know I want to do and then
you mentioned like Polo's pantry, I'm just going to do
something like you know, you know, I didn't know all
(37:08):
about the farmer pull this pantry I'm just going to
have this big distry and this is on the cuff
of the pandemic. And I was like, oh, okay, and
then and then it happened. We were still feeding people's
particularly like there was Laura and another house woman that
had got COVID. Because people don't realize when COVID happened.
(37:30):
There was the house people that had COVID too, but
they were not putting them in the hospitals. They were
putting on the ship on the Queen Mary, moving them
out on the out of the water. And so they
had her at this hotel and she couldn't she was
so weak, she couldn't get out. We were trying to
figure out a way to give her the food, and
we finally came to the food. It was like, it
was so crazy to see the realities of the groups
(37:51):
that were usually out helping unhouse people were not and
we were like the owners of it was we had
to find Yeah, we had to find a way. We
had to figure out how to.
Speaker 7 (38:03):
And I think like that's yeah, fast forward to me organizing.
I don't actually don't know how. I I think it
was actually Jane, Jane who because at the time I
was I was kind of yea, Jane, when who is
like the great connector to people need to know who
she is. I think I was part of the OG
(38:23):
group of Katon for all. I think I joined about
four months after like they had just formed it. And
I remember Jane started talking about working with you or
like talking to you, and she's like, you should talk
to THEO and so then that's what That's how I
reached out to you. And then it was at the
rec center in Chinatown. I remember that, yes, and then
I would God, yes, I'll come back. So it was
(38:47):
just like this, Oh, I was working this shitty job.
I was like, it was so sucking, and I like
had been there for a long time, and I already
knew i'd been I've been organizing so much then because
I was literally locked into this like corporate like just beige, boring,
like really soul sucking job that really it was just
(39:07):
around to pay the bills and my bosses knew and
I had no heart in it, and so I was
just like and I literally would look at like social
media and TV or whatever, and I would just like
literally salivate over what people were out there doing. They're
like I would drive by and people were like out
feeding folks. I'm I'm gonna do that someday. I literally
be like, I can do that, And I was just
(39:29):
like I just felt the pull, like I have to
do this.
Speaker 4 (39:35):
For you to go a full time job. I didn't
come all the way at night, I mean ten eleven
a night doing She's really really dedicated and I.
Speaker 3 (39:45):
Was at the time.
Speaker 7 (39:46):
I wasn't even connected to any groups. I literally was
just like, I just want to be of service. How
do I And I think like even meeting you also
changed the game for me because his you were teaching
me so much about seeing it through the lens of
someone actually on the street. And so I think that
(40:07):
I think in itself gave Polos its teeth too. I
will I will tell people I think like, really Polos
has his teeth.
Speaker 4 (40:14):
And really the first clause.
Speaker 7 (40:16):
Came from like my relationship and my friendship with THEO
because literally us being comrades, us literally being like just
like kin, there was I remember one time you I
think either you like you hurt your knee or what happened.
Speaker 4 (40:30):
Yeah, I was on a walker because I broke my legs,
So yeah, I couldn't go to the hospital because we
was in a freaking count pandemic.
Speaker 7 (40:36):
Yeah, and so I remember I would like it was
me and Michelle across the street zen May. We were
taking turns making sure that he was okay, and so
it was just like but I also remember it was
also the kindling of weian house because I remember he
would have a phone.
Speaker 4 (40:56):
Recording this thing.
Speaker 7 (40:58):
So it's really cool for us to so we're it's
all a celebration that you're seeing us really celebrate each
other in a way because we literally it was just
it was just us, like we got to do something
like it was us just being like, let's just work together.
And it just kept building over the years. And so
now we're sitting in iHeartRadio.
Speaker 4 (41:19):
Then, like I said, it was well fought and well,
well so much.
Speaker 7 (41:29):
Absolutely so we we we struggled together, and I think
that's I think that is also the beauty of our
work together is like people don't see and you can't
show that tu in social media, the relationships that we
have with each other. I mean, THEO and I have
literally struggled together. We've seen iterations of like just you know,
(41:51):
fights and destruction coming into our movements, and we've seen
cycles of it, so many cycles of it, but yet
we are here and that's such a testament to like
how we're like, okay, we will take care of each other.
Speaker 4 (42:06):
I think that's it.
Speaker 3 (42:07):
I just want to add that I think like you
also gave Jass their teeth. I mean, I don't. I
think we were.
Speaker 5 (42:17):
Put us on very strong ground to do what we
do and to know that we were doing it right
and not have to really second guess from the get go.
And I think that that was really important. And like
it is wild, like I'm at the on the park too.
(42:40):
Here we are, you know, it's really beautiful. And like
also Polos is our partner as well, so it's really beautiful.
Speaker 4 (42:46):
And that was one of the things that I really
liked about what you were doing when we was out
on the street. The food we had. We had like
boards had sandwiches. It wasn't like you know, like you
see charities or or or you know, they just throw
anything you just you'd be glad for day old stuff
or things. I mean it was really the cakes and
(43:08):
you know, different desserts to drink. I mean it was
like really quality food and you could tell when man, yeah,
can I get extra it, you know, you know that's
good food because they are trying to portion out for
the next day or something. I said, oh, yeah, you
got it.
Speaker 7 (43:25):
Yeah, And I think that's what I wanted. I think
that's sort of like the impetus or the catalyst for
polos is that I'm like, I was seeing stuff out
there and I'm.
Speaker 4 (43:33):
Like, this is garbage. This is garbage.
Speaker 7 (43:36):
There's no nutritional value to it. Like you literally are
feeding folks like expired food, Like I mean, it's like
it's an afterthought and so and these are literally are
you know what I mean? Like these are these folks
are like our family, Like we have to treat folks
like our family. Would you feed someone like would you
feed your mom and expired exactly like stale chips, Like
(43:57):
you're not going to do that. And so I think
to teach folks sort of even that I don't want
to call it culture, but really the culture of care
of like being like, look, there's no separation between us
and folks on the street, like literally that is you,
that someone's uncle, that someone's brother. And if we really
can move away from this sort of separation right of
(44:20):
just thinking that like oh someone else is going to
do it, or someone else will take care of those problems.
Now you see someone hurting or seeing someone needs help,
you do something about it. You know what I mean.
Speaker 4 (44:31):
We're going to take a break and we will be
right back. We're back. And one of the things that
I loved about it as well is like it breaks
the cycle. And I think even for when when I
was in house, because I had to learn deserving an
(44:52):
undeserving poor, because they they had drilled it so much
into you that you deserve stale stuff you deserve. You
can't you choosy or if you do, then you know,
you just being difficult. And then it made me really
re examin like why am I being Why? Why is
asking for a place that you know is safe or
or food that's edible that I want to eat, you
(45:14):
know other than science some dry as beans or something
like that that I don't want to eat. Why should
I feel like I feel ashamed to ask for that?
Why should I feel because I'm in house, I shouldn't
ask for something quality. That's where the impetus where you
have with EBT, where you go into like seven to eleven
other places, they won't give you hot food and if
you do, you have to use the cash portion of
your benefits, and that it reinforces that ideas that they
(45:37):
are not worthy of hot food. You better take this
cold food, or you better take this this you know,
expire whatever. But the idea, that notion is so embedded
in our society of help and it's really hard for
people that are in these systems to really break out
of that, you know, because I had hard time doing it,
But I just wanted to point out that's one of
the downfalls or the I says, the bad side of
(46:00):
charities because we have a control mechanism in it. We
have to control poor people in a way that they
need to always remember that they're poor and less than
or you know, maybe I'm on off face, but that's
what I gathered from charities when I dealt with them.
Speaker 2 (46:16):
So yeah, I was part of a group of people
who who went to speak with the mayor in early
August about her inside Save program, And right before the meeting,
I went down to one of the locations down in
South Central and just knocked on doors because I didn't
have any relationships with people there, but I someone was like, oh,
there's this location and some people might want to come.
(46:39):
So down there and door to door, every single person
in this program was starving. The first thing they asked
before was food, Do you have any food? And then
when I asked them about they're not feeding you, they said,
well they leave out stuff that is rotting. Yes, And so,
you know, this was her flagship program, and you know,
(47:00):
a couple of people were like, yes, I would like
to go talk to the mayor, right, So we went
and we sat and you know, there were there were
about twenty people there mayor and two of her aides,
and they went around in a circle and described their
experiences of being in the in the program and just
being on the street and then she, you know, basically
(47:23):
gave us the finger and so it was it was
really depressing, but that's that's what they get.
Speaker 4 (47:28):
I don't Yeah, I don't understand this.
Speaker 7 (47:30):
So I feel like, you know, I think we're kind
of at the time of the world where all of
us really globally are beginning to really release. See, the
government is not going to take care of us. Oh no,
politicians are not out here for us or for themselves.
And I think like what's important for us to remember
now is that at least For me, I'm thinking a
(47:51):
lot of abolition as we're as I'm hearing us talk
about this, because everything to talk about is violence, right,
is violence on some level. And I think, like I
think now more than ever, we have to really show
and reinforce the systems that we've built, like how do
we you know, how do we really kind of build
more support for jazz right all all of our collective efforts,
(48:14):
because we have been able to actually show that the
work that we do is actually more caring for the
people and it's actually led by the people.
Speaker 4 (48:23):
And.
Speaker 7 (48:25):
The world we want to build is not like the
designed architecture, the blueprint of it is not going to
come from people inside, Like they are not going to
come up with the with the most effective way or
the or the system that's going to really hold us all.
Speaker 5 (48:42):
Well, the system that is in place now is to
tear us down. We just have to realize that.
Speaker 7 (48:48):
Yes, And I think more people really really need to
get on board with this because it like we're kind
of coming into and again I feel like what's happening
in this moment in time is really allowing us to
see the whole structure of it. I mean, you have
like one, we have the three headed beasts, which is
by supremacy and like capitalism and patriarchy. As we're slaying
(49:12):
that thing, we're beginning to see all the things that
are weaved around it, and all of it too. The
collective of it also is even just idea of government.
The way that it's structured, it's so top down that
in itself is so important. I can get how I've
been getting real deep with the sense of this stuff
(49:32):
because I feel like we have to really draw the
connections for people and how and how our lives are
influenced by those things, and how the systems itself, especially
if you're a bipocked these systems are not built for you.
Speaker 6 (49:46):
No.
Speaker 2 (49:46):
And I think one of the amazing things about mutual
aid is that it's such a great way into that conversation,
because what a way to build trust with someone by
showing up and being like, Oh, I have this medicine
that you need, have this food, the heat, and you
know we're you know, we're in this together. And you
know what you were saying earlier about the black panthers
(50:07):
and the government targeting them, bringing that back into this
particular historic moment, The way that the government has chosen
to deal with mutual aid organizations is to charge them
with rico crimes, try and put us in prison as terrors.
Speaker 6 (50:20):
My god.
Speaker 2 (50:20):
Yeah, So it's clearly they are not not out for us,
They're they're actively like hostile to us.
Speaker 1 (50:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (50:27):
I'm threatened by it.
Speaker 7 (50:28):
Threatened because I think again, like that's why they try
to shut down and literally killed the panthers, is because
they they showed, they really modeled in a world that
was possible for you know, for black pols to thrive
right and to create, to create systems of care that
actually allowed for folks to be sovereign. And so I
(50:48):
think now we're going to see a rise of people
really wanting to be sovereign because of so much lack
of really lack of care, even the way even the
way politicians talk to us when we're in city hall.
Speaker 1 (51:03):
Right.
Speaker 4 (51:08):
But I also want to point out too, is like
you know, and I have to always remind people like
they are threatened, they aren't awaken up because before when
we like have a few years before the pandemic, when
we were contesting against forty one to eighteen, we was
allowed to have a place to speak, and we didn't
have such a battle. Then we noticed when we started
(51:29):
to protest and started demanding things, and then they had
they had no choice. Now they go into city hall,
they don't want you to speak at all, so like
the end, so they know that there is something germinating.
That's why they're trying to draw them up, these cops
city kind of places, and they know that they cannot
sustain because capitalism is now you can't sustain it anyway.
(51:50):
But the point of it is they cannot sustain violence
on a scale of a level like that without people
in the city, in the communities rising up or finding
out turning to a solution. And that's what they don't want.
That somebody somewhere is going to rise up and get
the communities together and just top of the system, and
then that's just going to be.
Speaker 7 (52:08):
That's what they don't want. And I think that's really
and they're going to find every way to stop us.
Speaker 5 (52:13):
Yes, yeah, yeah, I think that, Like what is one
of the most beneficial things to mutual aid is the
fact that like logistically, we're organizing together, right, We're doing
logistical things, We're organizing as a group to get this
thing done. And I think that is so so important
to how we proceed from going on from now right,
(52:35):
and like also like how we relate to each other,
how we create a system together under a certain set
of values, you know, and like understanding what those values are.
And I think what is really really important to anyone
who's listening to this, who wants to do mutual.
Speaker 3 (52:52):
Aid is you have to study. You have to study
so so much.
Speaker 5 (52:57):
Yes, you don't have to you have to learn from
the past and you don't have to reinvent the wheel
and make the same mistakes.
Speaker 3 (53:07):
And also study the things in the past and apply it.
Speaker 5 (53:11):
To today, like just apply it every and like it
is so so important because a lot I think the
impetus of like Okay, I'm just going I need to
do this is find the practice of it, like we
had to do it right, But then you have to
study and realize the theory behind your practice. And it
goes back and forth and back and forth. And I
(53:31):
think that is what makes what's going to make us strong,
what's going to make us win, you know.
Speaker 3 (53:38):
And I think it's it's when I see a lot.
Speaker 5 (53:40):
Of these groups, I see a lot of people get
burnt out, fizzle out in fighting all this kind of stuff,
and it's because they don't have principles. They don't have
you know, they're not organizing in a way where it's
bigger than everybody else. It's bigger than your shit, my shit,
your trauma. This is not therapy.
Speaker 7 (54:01):
Yes, oh my gosh, I actually want to I want
to uplift what you just said there, Zen, because it is.
It calls back to what Cleo Silver said when we
had that little sort of like like a little huddle,
like an organizer huddle. She said basically that like for
the Panthers to work, Yeah, you had to be tied
with that principle together. You always have to go back
(54:23):
to that because I feel like we collectively also have
seen how fishers in our in our movements have been
created because of a lot of I feel like, and
I'm just going to bring it out at.
Speaker 1 (54:41):
Well.
Speaker 7 (54:42):
I'm not going to name names, because they know who
they are, you can self identify, but I feel like
it's important for us to really kind of bring out
also the sort of the ego aspect of this work.
And I think a lot of us, she especially in
Los Angeles, we are you know, we have some celebrity
type sort of like you know, folks or just you know,
(55:03):
really like I think, I think we also have to
really take stock of how why we do this work,
why are you in these spaces and really understanding you know. Yeah,
Like I really love this sort of idea of real study,
because even the Panthers studied together. These groups have to
study together because in that too creates like that weaving
(55:27):
of that experience together and then your principles almost like
kind of like fossilize with each other. It's like, Okay,
we know we read all this stuff together, we understand
the ideologies around it or whatever. But like, what's cool
about I think what you guys are doing is that
you have both theory and practice, Like you're really like
mirroring both study and really like engaging engaging in the work,
(55:51):
and then it becomes solid.
Speaker 4 (55:52):
So I've seen you guys.
Speaker 7 (55:54):
Grow damn Like, yes, I'm saying right now and I
was just telling Zenas before we started their to me
right now, jazz out there, it's just making the revolution
look hot and sexy. And the one thing that's great
about that is because because also at the core of
(56:14):
the founding of jazz, you got artists and artists just
know how to literally create and have always made the
revolution look beautiful to the world, and so I think
that that in itself to me is like powerful. There's
so much power in the way that you guys have
been telling the story of your work there, and I
(56:35):
want to encourage other people to do the same thing.
I don't know why I'm soone ticulous about the storytelling
of my story or like the story of whatever, but
I think because I want to. I really am hoping
that I want to leave post as a gift to
Los Angeles because I'm telling you all, like I'm talking
to about this, I'm feeling old.
Speaker 1 (57:00):
No.
Speaker 7 (57:00):
But here's the thing though, Like we also have to
remember it goes back to ego. Like the second year
that I was running Polos, already knew it wasn't mine,
like the community owned it.
Speaker 2 (57:11):
I was just.
Speaker 4 (57:13):
I was just the steward.
Speaker 7 (57:14):
I'd love to say this in in in interviews what
I always say, I'm just the motherfucker keeps the lights on,
Like I just happened to be the person who has
to pay the bills. But I think, like I think
there's got to be a way that we change the
way we lead because I feel like sometimes for folks
who kind of get caught up in this work, that
the work becomes you, and that's danger. There's danger in
(57:36):
that because if someone says shit about like your org
or your work, then you take a hit. But then
under principled organizing, the work is global, right, The work
is universal. It's not just yours. It's literally everybody's liberation.
And if you're like, well, I this is mine, I'm like, no, bro,
(57:58):
like this is not yours is this is literally the peoples.
And I think having that conversation and really for organizers,
young folks who are listening to us right now, I
really really hope you guys are taking stock of why
you're trying to get into mutual aid because one, it's
dangerous work, right especially in the climate that we're in.
Speaker 4 (58:17):
And two, it's hard work. There's so much.
Speaker 7 (58:19):
Behind the scenes that you're not seeing that. It's not sexy,
as much as jazz makes it sexy. It takes a
lot of heart to really keep showing up to this work.
So you really have to ask yourself while you're doing it.
Speaker 4 (58:38):
And that's where we'll leave the conversation this week. If
you like what Melissa Niel and Zen had to say
good news. There's more where that came from, and we'll
be releasing the second part of our roundtable discussion on
our next episode. Until then, you can follow their work online.
Melissa can be found over at www dot Melissa Asadero
dot com or Lowspantry dot org. You can follow Neil
(59:03):
Substack at Neil Blakemore dot substack dot com, and you
can follow Zen at her website at zenseeki zaa dot com.
And as always, you can stay up to date and
in touch with Whedianhouse and with me on our social
media at www dot Weedanhouse dot com and on Instagram
(59:26):
at Whedianhouse, and remember to tell your friends to subscribe.
The show has come a long way and I'm excited
for it to continue to grow. Until then, may we
again meet in the light of understanding. Willian House is
a production of iHeartRadio. It is written, posted, and created
(59:47):
by me Theo Henderson. Our producers are Jamie Loftus, Lyra Smith,
and Katie Fisher. Our editor is Adam Wong, and our
logo art is also by Katiefisher. Thanks for listen.
Speaker 6 (01:00:00):
St
Previously on Weedian House, I'm seeing more and more of note,
not just Weekend Warrior. I'm going to go to March
because I can say I went to the March, but
I'm like, hey, we need to actually like do something. Clearly,
what's happening there is really broken. What's happening here is
just as no.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
I'm when I had the pertment we were today only
a thousand dollars.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
He just didn't care evicted us. He came out.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Telling us when he gave his eviction, I didn't want
to read you guys.
Speaker 4 (00:28):
And that's see, Tollissa.
Speaker 5 (00:29):
If reporters are not allowed to just be there to
watch what's going on, you know, how do you trust
what they say?
Speaker 4 (00:36):
Later on Welcome back to Weedian House, I'm your host,
Theo Henderson. Before we delve into today's topic, I want
to take a moment to thank my listeners. One new
(00:58):
listener reached out to me from New Zealand. A big
thanks to Anissa Lahonta for recommending a guest to join
my show. Another shout out I like to do is
to DJ Palmerville, who also sent a recommendation and I'm
looking forward to exploring as well. It is so gratifying
to know there are people listening, paying attention and offering suggestions.
(01:21):
I ask my unhoused listeners to reach out to me
at www dot weedyonhouse dot com and submit your encouraging
words for recommendations. We've got a lot to talk about
this week on a topic so big we need two
episodes to crack it wide open the differences between mutual aid,
charity and philanthropy. But first, you know the drill. Let's
(01:48):
get into some house news. Our leading story today is
a weather advisory for the northern part of California. Temperatures
in Los Angeles from January ninth to January eighteenth are
ranging from a high of sixty six degrees to a
low of forty three degrees with high winds. It is
important to point out hypothermia is the leading cause of
(02:11):
death for unhoused people. Due to these types of temperatures,
house people can throw on a sweater or turn up
the thermostad for the thousands of people who live on
the streets, cold weather and high winds put your life
at risk. On December twenty sixth, a one year old
unhoused child pass away of hypothermia and an unhoused man
(02:34):
named John died of the same cause on January ninth
in South la In closely related news across the country,
families with children had to leave New York shelters as
of last week. You may not be surprised to hear
that the people who run the City of Los Angeles
are not prepared to protect their unhoused constituents this year either.
(02:56):
As of this recording, there are eleven shelters open in
the Law Central's area, with three hundred and eighty eight
beds available. Keep in mind they are currently over seventy
five thousand house people in the same area. If you're
looking to get connected with one of these shelters, this
is what was available when we recorded on January ninth,
(03:19):
and numbers may have changed since the time of the recording.
Forty four beds at Volunteers of America address forty five
one hundred and fifty sixtieth Street in West Lancaster, California.
The population they serve is co ed thirty five beds
at Advancing Communities Together. It is at thirty eight six
(03:39):
hundred and twenty six to ninth Street in East Palmdale, California,
only open from seven pm to seven am on weekdays
and twenty four hours on Saturday and Sunday. Population served
co ED fifty beds at home at last eighty seven
sixty eight South Broadway, Los Angeles. Population served women eleven
(04:03):
beds at Assured Lifestyle Housing. Ninety five nineteen South Figaroa,
Los Angeles. Population served co ed nine beds at Assured
Lifestyle Housing. Seven hundred West Florence, Los Angeles population served
co ed forty one beads at First to served. Seventeen
(04:24):
eighteen West Vernon Avenue, Los Angeles. Population served co ED
sixty beds at Bryant Temple Community Development. Fifty five hundred
South Hoover Street, Los Angeles. Population served men thirty two
beds at Abundant Blessings. Eleven thirty three South Ardmore Avenue,
(04:45):
Los Angeles. Population served men fifty five beds at New
Reflections eighty three eleven Southwestern Avenue, Los Angeles. Population served
men eleven beds at which Ye First Day twelve four
hundred and twenty six Whittier Boulevard, Whittier, California. Population served
(05:07):
coed and forty beds at First to Serve. Seven hundred
and two West Anaheon Street, Long Beach, California, population served COED.
To connect with any of these services, call to one
one or one eight hundred five four eight sixty forty seven.
(05:27):
You can also go to LASA dot org went to
shelter for this full list, or call Lossa's shelter hotline
at two one three six eight three thirty three thirty three.
It's no secret that the city is not prepared to
protect the unhoused during major whatever events like this. These
shelters are all that's available to service the population of
(05:48):
over seventy five thousand. If you go to one of
these shelters and want to tell us your experience, we
in House wants to hear about it. Send us a
message at www dot weedianhouse dot com Our next story.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and the LPD ejected trans
(06:10):
and house people of color in West Hollywood on Tuesday,
January ninth, twenty twenty four. Howse LGBQTIA plus community members
have complained about the unhoused community, citing fights and other
nefarious activities. Weedian House stopped by on Sunday, January seventh
unhoused residents, pointing out the hostility and unwelcome behavior one
(06:32):
complain of an illegal arrest and police brutality by the
Los Angeles Sheriff's Department. This is a developing story. Weedian
House will follow up later. And finally, this week's Unhoused
News exclusive is with Aaron Flores, former environmental compliance inspector
turned videographer. This interview was recorded last November after an
(06:57):
event I attended where doctor Cornell West spoke with local
activists at a fundraising event for his campaign. And don't worry,
my interview with Cornell West will be included in an
upcoming episode. Aaron and I had a fascinating talk where
let's just say, we don't always agree. It's a longer one,
but we'll be sharing the first part here. Hello.
Speaker 6 (07:24):
My name is Aaron Flores. I used to work as
an environmental compliance inspector for La Sanitation. I did the
job for about three years, and I decided last July
to leave a very financially comfortable job that put me
in many ethical conflicts. I decided to leave that to
(07:45):
try to be a little bit more consistent in my character,
especially as someone who thinks constantly about these things.
Speaker 4 (07:52):
Let's start from the beginning, because this is a story
that really needs to be told.
Speaker 6 (07:56):
So I worked as an ECI or environment compliance inspector
for the Liveability Services Division, which is a fairly nascent division,
and I actually got hired as an emergency hire, so
they hired me pretty quickly. I filed an application during
summer and I began training in about August, so that's
(08:22):
very very fast for a city employee. Usually city employees
have to wait a long time. Started training, I didn't
really know what exactly I was getting into, but I
had an idea. We studied the municipal Code of fifty
six eleven.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
What is fifty six eleven.
Speaker 6 (08:38):
So it's basically rules of the sidewalk and there's been
a few revisions of it. I think in twenty sixteen
they like added a few revisions. When you first read it,
it's kind of like a little bit vague, it's kind
of just refers to just anything. And then later on
it starts it feels like it begins to be a
(08:59):
little bit more targeted, maybe towards the unhoused or you know,
just very specific legal circumstances for the unhoused. But as
an ECI, I abide by that municipal code so I
can't do anything outside of my jurisdiction, but I do
follow these set principles, and many of the ones that
(09:21):
we had enforced or asked police enforcement to enforce, would
be eighty A, which is the American Disabilities Act, which
requires I think it's three feet of walkway space on
any sidewalk. And the other one would be ingress egress,
which is you cannot be within ten feet of an
entrance or exit which includes a driveway or a doorway.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
When you were being trained, did they mention the tense
relationship would be dealing with the unhoused or how to
deal with that or what was their training on that?
Because you were dealing with human beings and their belongings,
you probably gathered if I started rummaging through your things
or going and throwing your things in the trash, you
want to be unstendedly upset. So how did they work
(10:04):
work that into your trend?
Speaker 6 (10:06):
Well, I guess it would be on field training. You
read something on paper and it looks a little bit
more convenient, but obviously, as an ECI, it's just being
the bearer bad news. And even though it's a very
difficult thing to do, except you know, especially for someone
who's cognizant or conscious and concerned about their ethical life.
But when you're being paid like eighty thousand dollars projected
(10:29):
into one hundred thousand within I don't know, six years
of service, it you know, begins to be a little
bit you kind of compromise, at least in the beginning,
you know, just like characters in Dostoyevsky's novels, you know,
you can only evade guilt for so long until it
really begins to be sort of crippling.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
Well, I remember that as the Median House was in
it innascency, we were out on the field in covering
the sweeps to educate people, and we ran across when
you was employed, and we definitely were not the most
polite or you know, it was kind of a tense
situation because of the issues there. What was going through
your mind when you've seen this a bunch show up
(11:12):
with a camera and microphone. What was your initial reaction
because a lot of the the ecis initially they were surprised,
some of them became very angry, some of them became
very confrontational, believing or not, and which shocked a lot
of us. Like we didn't expect the type of reaction.
We talked that it was going to be sastoic, but
(11:32):
then they started becoming vigdictive. So what was your initial
reaction when we first came up on the same.
Speaker 6 (11:38):
Usually for me, I just I'm expecting to be filmed,
so I make sure I crossed my t's and dot
my eyes. So sometimes, you know, ECIS would get in
trouble for, as you said, sometimes talking directly to people
or to anyone you know who's quotable. Yeah, we would
(11:59):
get in trouble for you know, not following standard operating procedures.
Some of our procedures included like taking photographic evidence, and
there were, at least in the very beginning of LSD,
people would often take shortcuts when people weren't looking. Oftentimes,
some of the justifications that are used are finding urine
(12:22):
or fequal matter inside of encampment, And an encampment is
a little bit different from homelessness because an encampment usually
entels like a tent or some type of structure. But anyways,
some of the shortcuts would be justifying throwing away a
lot of the encampment for a year and bottle that
(12:44):
might be contained within something and oftentimes the justification for
throwing away these things would be cross contamination. But you know,
there has to be a justification behind every single thing
that we do because as an inspector, are job is
to care for the health and safety of the public.
(13:06):
And this is probably the limiting point of where we
start getting into disagreements because I do believe that there
are health hazards that are produced in encampments.
Speaker 4 (13:18):
Well, I have a lot to say about fat. During
our next Unhoused News segment, we'll continue that conversation and
I will challenge Aaron on the house views of encampments.
And that's in House News for this week. Up next,
we get to talk to the people at the forefront
(13:39):
of the LA activist community and get into the nitty
gritty around what it really takes to have a consistent
and positive impact on the community. Stay with us, Welcome
back to well in House. I gave you a homework
(14:01):
assignment at the end of our last episode, and it
was what is the difference between mutual aid charity and philanthropy.
In the next two episodes, we'll be exploring the issues fully.
These three activists are essential to the conversation we're going
to have today. We're going to pull the curtain back
of a bit of history, experience, and laughter to keep
(14:22):
our wits about us. In a discombobulated world, time does
not permit the awesomeness of all of our guests and
what they mean to the city of Los Angeles. Here's
my roundtable talk with Melissa Asadero, Zen Sakizawa, and Neil Blakemore. Well,
(14:46):
this is the exciting part of it. All of the
activists here we know each other and we want to
basically have a very educational, fun kind of conversation. And
the studios we have Neil Hello, and Melissa Asadero. Watch
I get this right, Zen Seki sawad I didn't butcher that.
(15:10):
So all of them know me and then in our
own way, and but yet we all have the same
kind of common course in mind and heart and spirit.
So I'm going to touch base with Melissa. She's going
to give us a little bit of a backdrop about
mutual age. Yeah, so Melissa tell us a little bit
about the history of mutual.
Speaker 7 (15:30):
A Well, I think a lot of people feel like
mutual aid is sort of especially if you're new to
it and came into it during the pandemic, that that
was something that kind of just sort of like sprouted
kind of as a response to the pandemic. But this
has been happening for hundreds of years. I started to
research the history of mutual aid because I really wanted
(15:52):
to understand how the areas that were most active in
are predominantly in black and brown communities. And so when
what I found was during the eighteen hundreds, nineteen hundreds,
even like way way back, so mutual aid projects basically
our way for like political participation for a lot of
these groups. The Free African Society actually happened in seventeen
(16:14):
eighty seven. That came about in Philadelphia, and it was
in the summer of seventeen ninety three because there was
an epidemic that had Philadelphia of like yellow fever.
Speaker 4 (16:25):
Their version of COVID nineteen exactly, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 7 (16:28):
See, So there were two black ministers and the founders
of the Free African Society was Richard Allen and Absalom Jones.
So they were one of the first black mutual aid
societies in the US, and so it was just really
kind of a way for them to organize folks who
were dying in like literally on the street, because I
(16:48):
think the city itself begged black residents for help, believing
in correct correctly that they were.
Speaker 4 (16:54):
Immune to the disease. So the racism too within.
Speaker 7 (16:56):
The medicaleah medical racism was targeted right into sort of
black citizens, and so they felt like it was their
duty to basically, you know, support suffering brothers and sisters,
and so they created relief for the sick, sheltering orphans,
transporting and burying the z and so it really was
again like a response to what was happening because they
(17:18):
saw the government wasn't doing anything so commedy. And then
the black mutual aid societies spread rapidly in the early
eighteen hundreds. I think by like the eighteen thirties, one
hundred mutual age societies kind of like explode in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Boston,
New Orleans. And so this kind of kept happening for
like hundreds of years. You go forward to eighteen thirty five,
(17:42):
the New York Committee of Vigilance was actually founded when
Frederick Douglas escaped from enslavement in eighteen thirty eight. He
fled to New York City, and I think a lot
of self emancipation was dangerous and terrifying for people. So
you had no money and no home, and often white
kidnappers and police were hunting you down. So so uh,
(18:03):
Predic Douglass and a bunch of other black scholars and
folks created support for folks who were running away. So
it was just kind of a practical abolition for them.
Speaker 4 (18:14):
M hmm.
Speaker 7 (18:15):
It's like for folks we are kind of like newly emancipated.
Back then, they knew the barriers for other kind of folks,
recently freed folks like you know, what you can do
where you can hide, and so they created these these
mutual aid networks and then fast forward to underground railroad.
Speaker 4 (18:35):
So it's just again like.
Speaker 7 (18:36):
I'm trying to create like a longer arc of the
timeline of the work that we're doing. So, I mean,
I have so much more. There's so much here, Like
early nineteen hundred's Chinese consolidated benevolent association. So you have
to remember through the context historical contact that's happening at
the time. So you have to remember, like you know,
(18:57):
Chinese were kind of like building the railroads and all
that stuff. And so I think for us as black
and brown folks like we just have always been outside
of the system, and so we create systems of care
within that network. I'm trying to encourage folks to think
beyond what you know, like kind of the system that
we create and so like mteal aid has always been
(19:17):
born out of that.
Speaker 4 (19:19):
Also too, if I interject this that we have a
historical blinderss because the historical leaders of the past, we
are kind of whitewashed and we don't really talk about,
for example, those revolutionary type of ideas because at that
period of time it was outside of the way. It
was not a normal practice. It was and we don't
(19:39):
we kind of I don't want to say minimize it,
but we don't really emphasize it's dangerous, it was against
the law, it was the death penalty for any slave
to read always those kinds of things that was going
on there that if you had escaped and they got
the slave catcher, you remember as how the police have
been formed. All of these things has its underpinnings from
(20:00):
these kind of systems. We don't give it a second glance,
so we really don't take a second to really emphasize
this is where this comes from. But I want to
jump in then into the conversation, hie yays. Then we
have known each other for some time, and I was
wondering what is your insights on mutual aid, philanthropy and charity,
(20:23):
because we've had some excellent conversations. I just want to
just capture it, just a slice of those moments with
our audience.
Speaker 5 (20:30):
Yeah, well, thanks for having me here. It's so cool
to be with Melissa and Neil and you and yeah,
we've known each other for a really long time, almost.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
Eight years now.
Speaker 4 (20:42):
Talk about jazz.
Speaker 5 (20:43):
Okay, So most of you've known us for our power
ups that we have every week, say mutual Aid program
we've been doing every Saturday from two to five pm
for the last three years, yes, almost three years coming up.
Speaker 4 (20:59):
Yes, I get excited when we talked about the Mutual
eight because we first started, we were feeling our way
into the situation. And I remember when we first started,
we were on the side on the street on the
corner of Judge John Isio a little Tokyo and at
Thurimi Plaza, and we knew what we wanted to do.
(21:23):
We knew the crisis was real, we knew people needed help.
But you know, there was a context there was things
going on that you know, the residents of the the
trumy Plaza they looked on at the kind of side
eye you know, just say, charity. What was your first
expressions when we first.
Speaker 5 (21:40):
Started out our first our first power up was kind
of scary, you know. I think we had one table.
There had been an encampment we started. We started during
pandemic too, and but very different from what you were
talking about.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
I question, hope. So, but yeah, we had.
Speaker 5 (22:03):
One table and we were in the middle of an
encampment in Totyomi Plaza. They're probably like maybe thirty residents there.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
We had asked them.
Speaker 5 (22:13):
Previously a couple of weeks prior if they would be
fine with us coming and doing it, and they were
like okay.
Speaker 4 (22:21):
And yeah.
Speaker 5 (22:23):
It was a lot of trial and error and learning
especially from you THEO, and like understanding really what the
practice of mutual aid is versus charity, Like having people
with their own autonomy talking to them about what their
needs are, versus like, you know, projecting what you think
(22:47):
their needs are for us.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
Like mutual aid is old.
Speaker 5 (22:51):
I mean it's old, like Melissa says, I mean I
think it goes into indigenous cultures, it goes into animals,
it goes into nature. So it's only because of the
systems of white supremacy and imperialism that that has been
extracted out of our lives.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
And we think this is a new thing, you know.
Speaker 5 (23:11):
So yeah, but like it is acknowledging the fact that
if we're not all okay, we're not going to survive.
And I think with like charities, there's a lot of
means testing. Obviously, you have to you have to fit
a certain like stereotype, you have to you know, believe
(23:34):
in God, you have to.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
Not look like you're on drugs or.
Speaker 5 (23:39):
Whatever, and and those things don't acknowledge like what put
these people in these desperate situations in the first place.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
And I think that is the biggest difference of like
charities will address.
Speaker 5 (23:57):
An issue like you're hungry, but mutual aid in its
best form will say, Okay, you're hungry, here's what you
need to survive. Let's talk about why you are hungry.
Let's talk about what put you in this position that
you're hungry. You don't have a house, you know, you're
doing self care stuff, and like you know, like all
(24:18):
these things. Yeah, I think that's the biggest difference for
me is just acknowledging the oppression and the systems that
put you in this certain situation, and not to be
ashamed of it, to just acknowledge it and be conscious
of it.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
And then how do we go from there? How do
you empower yourself from there?
Speaker 5 (24:39):
Like when you don't feel like the victim, you don't
feel ashamed, you should feel pissed, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
You know.
Speaker 4 (24:45):
And I think one of the things images when you
were saying this about the differences between the means testing
of charities and mutual aid. I remember there was a
couple of times that we've had some of the residents
that had moments where they had breaks in reality. Now
usually is you probably know the usually people that see
them get afraid called police. And I really really was
(25:06):
gratified of the way it says, how do we deal
with this because we know that there's going to be
people that are not used to this, what can we
do to make them be safe, be fed, and be
able to come out of whatever they need to. And
that I think is a little bit different than when
we have charities or security or like the bids or
(25:27):
those kind of entities. Because people think you know, running
them away or moving them, They're just going to go
down the block and still have the same end episode.
It's not going to change. And they're coming to those
places to get fed and get seen and be safe.
Because you can be able to get the type of
community to support that, you're truly going to do the
(25:47):
trauma inform care kind of approach. I think, what's what
I think I'm hovering around that idea, but truly looking
at that and looking at dismantling the systems ofcarcoral kind
of incarceration with the care courts is looming large in
California as we speak now. And Neil, Neil, did you
have anything you want to say?
Speaker 2 (26:07):
Yeah, just that I think you're you're talking about treating
people like they're a human being rather than a problem, right,
And I think that that is so important. And I feel,
you know, one thing, in terms of people who are
interested in building movements against these systems of oppression, mutual
aid I think is essential to that because it builds
(26:29):
like resilient communities. And you know, these these electoral organizers
they come in and they get a lot of people
interested in this thing, but then their their movements are brittle,
because they're not built on that kind of reciprocity that
we need if we really want to survive and and
I even survive beyond like you know, whatever happens to
(26:50):
the United States or whatever the next election, but like
we're we're facing an existential crisis that's much bigger than that.
And I think we're gonna we're going to need mutual
aid if we want to get through that.
Speaker 7 (27:00):
I want to add to that because mutual aid and
even kind of grounding the again back to historical contexts.
I love history around social justice movements. We recently had
Cleo Silver's here and Cleo Silver Versus the central organizer
of the Black Panther Parties Free Breakfast Programs, which thought
in Oakland in sixty nine. She was also part of
(27:22):
the Young Lords in the Bronx and really was kind
of the architect of a lot of like actions around
taking back the hospitals and really kind of the medical
system which has been violently racist and harmful and violent
to the black communities. She was recently here and it
(27:44):
was just really really cool to hear her talk about
how she was able to envision a lot of the
work that she did, especially with the Panthers and what
I love about mutual aid it is literally the threat
to the government, Like what we're doing is absolutely a
threat because we show a model that is doable. We're
(28:05):
showing a model that is we're showing we're showing what's possible,
and we're essentially showing folks that, like the government is
not here to take care of us, we take care
of us and really kind of embodying that in the
work that we do. So going back to Cleo Silver's
(28:25):
their free breakfast program was so effective that you know,
like Hoover, who's director of the FBI at the time,
named the Black Panthers really the number one threat to
you know, to the government at the time because they
were able to literally organize thousands of free breakfast to
children across I always say, like forty one cities and
(28:47):
that is massive.
Speaker 4 (28:49):
But also she wants to point out, which is important
which is going on with us, is they tried to
find ways to sabotage that success. Yeah, poisoning food, which
is one of the things when we stink outside the bus,
nobody wants to hear their child we have food poisoning
or poison So that really creates a disquiet or dissension
in the community, which what she says she had to
(29:10):
they had to stop because they were trying to deliberately
harm people and harm people in the community. And that's
simply say the same thing the conversational point. There's nothing
changed here because when we started mutual aids in people
were literally coming and talking about you know, let let
them starve, or or contacting people in the community, not
(29:31):
always in the community, but like people like Kevin de Leone,
or trying to put up a fence, all of these things.
Can you talk a little bit about what kind of
sabotage efforts that went on with the mutual aids there, Like,
for example, we were successfully helping people and they didn't
like that, so they started wanting to eject the residents
out of Tarumy Plaza.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
Oh, you mean just all the opposition that we've just
all the other ship.
Speaker 5 (29:59):
Well, I wanted to to add to what Melissa was
saying about the Black Panther Breakfast program. I think is
really essential to any mutual aid program is there's also
information shared, right, revolutionary theory shared, and I think that
is very very important.
Speaker 3 (30:17):
You know, that's.
Speaker 5 (30:18):
Also a big difference between mutual aid and charity, Like
you have to share that knowledge and historical information and
have people realize like what.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
These systems do.
Speaker 5 (30:35):
And you know it's with that sort of consciousness that
you know, we can build a better system of resistance.
Speaker 4 (30:43):
Right.
Speaker 5 (30:46):
But yeah, like there's a gosh, it's like so much
has happened in the three years. We've only been around
three years, and it seems like yeah, but yeah, you know,
there's a lot of communities made up of many, many
different people. That's saying things very nicely. You know, there's
(31:10):
a lot of classes, and you know, understanding what class
consciousness looks like specifically in Little Tokyo's been really interesting
to see. And but yeah, so we've had, of course,
like the conservative business owners like Rally, the politicians like
Kevin de Leone, and you know sweep the plaza, which
(31:36):
you know was really strange, not strange, it was really
disappointing for me being a longtime community member of Little Tokyo.
And you know, the hypocrisy between like forty one eighteen
and Executive Order nine oh sixty six, like one block
away from toty Umi Plaza, the big sweep that happened
(31:59):
was where people were rounded up and taken to camps.
And it's the same thing. It's the same story of displacement.
It's the same tactics, you know, like you don't know
where you're going, you have to put your stuff in
two bags and go right. And it's just like based
on what nothing. They call the police on us all
the time, they call the security guards on us. We've
(32:21):
been attacked by the bid. We have had just random
people come and start fights with us.
Speaker 3 (32:29):
Yeah, it's been it's been a lot.
Speaker 5 (32:32):
It's also like it's very public what we're doing every
Saturday from two to five. So yeah, there's a lot
of security concerns, you know, and like.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
Like you said, like it is a direct threat to
a lot of people and people are going to react.
Speaker 4 (32:48):
We will be back in a moment with more of
our conversations. Welcome back to Weedian House. Let's take you
right back into my conversation about mutual aid, charity and
philanthropy with Melissa, Neil and Zen. We did a little
(33:11):
bit of the history, but we didn't do the history
of how Polo pantry came into being, and I think
we would be remiss in understanding how did you formulate
that because I think that story needs to be told.
Speaker 7 (33:25):
I feel like I have to meet different versions of
myself and I tell the story differently because it's almost
like you uncover, right, unravel Now that I have more
language with like the work, now that I have more
context historically, now that I have more cultural sort of
like backing and foundation, this is in my blood, Like literally,
(33:48):
this stuff is in my blood. I am from a
lineage of entrepreneurial Filipino women. So if you want to
go back historically, my maternal grandmother ran a Sorry Sorry
store in the Philippines in the eighties and it was
cool because it literally felt like this was marked into
(34:09):
my into my blood because she would literally nag my, my, my,
my lolo, my my grandfather to go and buy produce
in the northern part of the country and would buy
from small farms, from small farmers and bring that back
to the barrio where they live, which is in so Milang.
And you know, she just knew, she she she I'm like,
(34:34):
how do I know this? She just knew that she
wanted to kind of one support the farmers and to
bring healthy food into her community. I'm like, wow, where
did I learn that it is literally like my maternal grandmother.
But even beyond that, her sisters too were all in
some kind of food work. Her her sister Malala Ana,
(34:57):
she runs, she ran, she she's rest. Their souls are
all they're all past.
Speaker 4 (35:02):
Now.
Speaker 7 (35:04):
She married into a family the Santo Says, and they
run the oldest bakery in their bodio, which is over
one hundred years old. Now it's the Smulan Bakery. So
I have her and then their other sister, my Lola,
my Lotta Felly. She's actually the grandmother that I grew
up with here physically, she was the grandmother that I
(35:25):
that I learned to cook from. And my lord who's
also like part of the crew sisters, she would also
cook for for folks. So it's just like now, if
I realize it, I really kind of am just sort
of remembering the things that my family has always done
to take care of their communities. So I just really
(35:45):
kind of brought it to where I am.
Speaker 4 (35:48):
Well, if I may add a little little season to
that conversation, have how we met, Like, oh, yeah, you
had a strong family lineage, jis you were actually working
and working for a time, and I wanted to point
this out because uh, and it's for everyone knows that
I did my podcast when I was living in the park,
(36:10):
and I remember you had reached out to me and
you asked it, I need food, and but the friends
of mine around and you will come. You will work
a full day, you will go and get the food,
and then you will come at night to come to
give me the food. And then from that point on
there was like I would talk to some of them
to come around to get the food, like when we
(36:32):
met the mother with the ten kids, and you know,
other families and things like that, and it really is
you know, at the time, you know, Polos pantries was
a distant eye.
Speaker 7 (36:42):
But yeah, it wasn't even it wasn't even like but
it wasn't even.
Speaker 4 (36:46):
I didn't I clearly remember you said. You one one day,
you said, you know, I think I'm going to leave
my job. You just standing out of nowhere, and I
was like, okay, I'm grabbing the food like and then
she says, you know I want to do and then
you mentioned like Polo's pantry, I'm just going to do
something like you know, you know, I didn't know all
(37:08):
about the farmer pull this pantry I'm just going to
have this big distry and this is on the cuff
of the pandemic. And I was like, oh, okay, and
then and then it happened. We were still feeding people's
particularly like there was Laura and another house woman that
had got COVID. Because people don't realize when COVID happened.
(37:30):
There was the house people that had COVID too, but
they were not putting them in the hospitals. They were
putting on the ship on the Queen Mary, moving them
out on the out of the water. And so they
had her at this hotel and she couldn't she was
so weak, she couldn't get out. We were trying to
figure out a way to give her the food, and
we finally came to the food. It was like, it
was so crazy to see the realities of the groups
(37:51):
that were usually out helping unhouse people were not and
we were like the owners of it was we had
to find Yeah, we had to find a way. We
had to figure out how to.
Speaker 7 (38:03):
And I think like that's yeah, fast forward to me organizing.
I don't actually don't know how. I I think it
was actually Jane, Jane who because at the time I
was I was kind of yea, Jane, when who is
like the great connector to people need to know who
she is. I think I was part of the OG
(38:23):
group of Katon for all. I think I joined about
four months after like they had just formed it. And
I remember Jane started talking about working with you or
like talking to you, and she's like, you should talk
to THEO and so then that's what That's how I
reached out to you. And then it was at the
rec center in Chinatown. I remember that, yes, and then
I would God, yes, I'll come back. So it was
(38:47):
just like this, Oh, I was working this shitty job.
I was like, it was so sucking, and I like
had been there for a long time, and I already
knew i'd been I've been organizing so much then because
I was literally locked into this like corporate like just beige, boring,
like really soul sucking job that really it was just
(39:07):
around to pay the bills and my bosses knew and
I had no heart in it, and so I was
just like and I literally would look at like social
media and TV or whatever, and I would just like
literally salivate over what people were out there doing. They're
like I would drive by and people were like out
feeding folks. I'm I'm gonna do that someday. I literally
be like, I can do that, And I was just
(39:29):
like I just felt the pull, like I have to
do this.
Speaker 4 (39:35):
For you to go a full time job. I didn't
come all the way at night, I mean ten eleven
a night doing She's really really dedicated and I.
Speaker 3 (39:45):
Was at the time.
Speaker 7 (39:46):
I wasn't even connected to any groups. I literally was
just like, I just want to be of service. How
do I And I think like even meeting you also
changed the game for me because his you were teaching
me so much about seeing it through the lens of
someone actually on the street. And so I think that
(40:07):
I think in itself gave Polos its teeth too. I
will I will tell people I think like, really Polos
has his teeth.
Speaker 4 (40:14):
And really the first clause.
Speaker 7 (40:16):
Came from like my relationship and my friendship with THEO
because literally us being comrades, us literally being like just
like kin, there was I remember one time you I
think either you like you hurt your knee or what happened.
Speaker 4 (40:30):
Yeah, I was on a walker because I broke my legs,
So yeah, I couldn't go to the hospital because we
was in a freaking count pandemic.
Speaker 7 (40:36):
Yeah, and so I remember I would like it was
me and Michelle across the street zen May. We were
taking turns making sure that he was okay, and so
it was just like but I also remember it was
also the kindling of weian house because I remember he
would have a phone.
Speaker 4 (40:56):
Recording this thing.
Speaker 7 (40:58):
So it's really cool for us to so we're it's
all a celebration that you're seeing us really celebrate each
other in a way because we literally it was just
it was just us, like we got to do something
like it was us just being like, let's just work together.
And it just kept building over the years. And so
now we're sitting in iHeartRadio.
Speaker 4 (41:19):
Then, like I said, it was well fought and well,
well so much.
Speaker 7 (41:29):
Absolutely so we we we struggled together, and I think
that's I think that is also the beauty of our
work together is like people don't see and you can't
show that tu in social media, the relationships that we
have with each other. I mean, THEO and I have
literally struggled together. We've seen iterations of like just you know,
(41:51):
fights and destruction coming into our movements, and we've seen
cycles of it, so many cycles of it, but yet
we are here and that's such a testament to like
how we're like, okay, we will take care of each other.
Speaker 4 (42:06):
I think that's it.
Speaker 3 (42:07):
I just want to add that I think like you
also gave Jass their teeth. I mean, I don't. I
think we were.
Speaker 5 (42:17):
Put us on very strong ground to do what we
do and to know that we were doing it right
and not have to really second guess from the get go.
And I think that that was really important. And like
it is wild, like I'm at the on the park too.
(42:40):
Here we are, you know, it's really beautiful. And like
also Polos is our partner as well, so it's really beautiful.
Speaker 4 (42:46):
And that was one of the things that I really
liked about what you were doing when we was out
on the street. The food we had. We had like
boards had sandwiches. It wasn't like you know, like you
see charities or or or you know, they just throw
anything you just you'd be glad for day old stuff
or things. I mean it was really the cakes and
(43:08):
you know, different desserts to drink. I mean it was
like really quality food and you could tell when man, yeah,
can I get extra it, you know, you know that's
good food because they are trying to portion out for
the next day or something. I said, oh, yeah, you
got it.
Speaker 7 (43:25):
Yeah, And I think that's what I wanted. I think
that's sort of like the impetus or the catalyst for
polos is that I'm like, I was seeing stuff out
there and I'm.
Speaker 4 (43:33):
Like, this is garbage. This is garbage.
Speaker 7 (43:36):
There's no nutritional value to it. Like you literally are
feeding folks like expired food, Like I mean, it's like
it's an afterthought and so and these are literally are
you know what I mean? Like these are these folks
are like our family, Like we have to treat folks
like our family. Would you feed someone like would you
feed your mom and expired exactly like stale chips, Like
(43:57):
you're not going to do that. And so I think
to teach folks sort of even that I don't want
to call it culture, but really the culture of care
of like being like, look, there's no separation between us
and folks on the street, like literally that is you,
that someone's uncle, that someone's brother. And if we really
can move away from this sort of separation right of
(44:20):
just thinking that like oh someone else is going to
do it, or someone else will take care of those problems.
Now you see someone hurting or seeing someone needs help,
you do something about it. You know what I mean.
Speaker 4 (44:31):
We're going to take a break and we will be
right back. We're back. And one of the things that
I loved about it as well is like it breaks
the cycle. And I think even for when when I
was in house, because I had to learn deserving an
(44:52):
undeserving poor, because they they had drilled it so much
into you that you deserve stale stuff you deserve. You
can't you choosy or if you do, then you know,
you just being difficult. And then it made me really
re examin like why am I being Why? Why is
asking for a place that you know is safe or
or food that's edible that I want to eat, you
(45:14):
know other than science some dry as beans or something
like that that I don't want to eat. Why should
I feel like I feel ashamed to ask for that?
Why should I feel because I'm in house, I shouldn't
ask for something quality. That's where the impetus where you
have with EBT, where you go into like seven to eleven
other places, they won't give you hot food and if
you do, you have to use the cash portion of
your benefits, and that it reinforces that ideas that they
(45:37):
are not worthy of hot food. You better take this
cold food, or you better take this this you know,
expire whatever. But the idea, that notion is so embedded
in our society of help and it's really hard for
people that are in these systems to really break out
of that, you know, because I had hard time doing it,
But I just wanted to point out that's one of
the downfalls or the I says, the bad side of
(46:00):
charities because we have a control mechanism in it. We
have to control poor people in a way that they
need to always remember that they're poor and less than
or you know, maybe I'm on off face, but that's
what I gathered from charities when I dealt with them.
Speaker 2 (46:16):
So yeah, I was part of a group of people
who who went to speak with the mayor in early
August about her inside Save program, And right before the meeting,
I went down to one of the locations down in
South Central and just knocked on doors because I didn't
have any relationships with people there, but I someone was like, oh,
there's this location and some people might want to come.
(46:39):
So down there and door to door, every single person
in this program was starving. The first thing they asked
before was food, Do you have any food? And then
when I asked them about they're not feeding you, they said,
well they leave out stuff that is rotting. Yes, And so,
you know, this was her flagship program, and you know,
(47:00):
a couple of people were like, yes, I would like
to go talk to the mayor, right, So we went
and we sat and you know, there were there were
about twenty people there mayor and two of her aides,
and they went around in a circle and described their
experiences of being in the in the program and just
being on the street and then she, you know, basically
(47:23):
gave us the finger and so it was it was
really depressing, but that's that's what they get.
Speaker 4 (47:28):
I don't Yeah, I don't understand this.
Speaker 7 (47:30):
So I feel like, you know, I think we're kind
of at the time of the world where all of
us really globally are beginning to really release. See, the
government is not going to take care of us. Oh no,
politicians are not out here for us or for themselves.
And I think like what's important for us to remember
now is that at least For me, I'm thinking a
(47:51):
lot of abolition as we're as I'm hearing us talk
about this, because everything to talk about is violence, right,
is violence on some level. And I think, like I
think now more than ever, we have to really show
and reinforce the systems that we've built, like how do
we you know, how do we really kind of build
more support for jazz right all all of our collective efforts,
(48:14):
because we have been able to actually show that the
work that we do is actually more caring for the
people and it's actually led by the people.
Speaker 4 (48:23):
And.
Speaker 7 (48:25):
The world we want to build is not like the
designed architecture, the blueprint of it is not going to
come from people inside, Like they are not going to
come up with the with the most effective way or
the or the system that's going to really hold us all.
Speaker 5 (48:42):
Well, the system that is in place now is to
tear us down. We just have to realize that.
Speaker 7 (48:48):
Yes, And I think more people really really need to
get on board with this because it like we're kind
of coming into and again I feel like what's happening
in this moment in time is really allowing us to
see the whole structure of it. I mean, you have
like one, we have the three headed beasts, which is
by supremacy and like capitalism and patriarchy. As we're slaying
(49:12):
that thing, we're beginning to see all the things that
are weaved around it, and all of it too. The
collective of it also is even just idea of government.
The way that it's structured, it's so top down that
in itself is so important. I can get how I've
been getting real deep with the sense of this stuff
(49:32):
because I feel like we have to really draw the
connections for people and how and how our lives are
influenced by those things, and how the systems itself, especially
if you're a bipocked these systems are not built for you.
Speaker 6 (49:46):
No.
Speaker 2 (49:46):
And I think one of the amazing things about mutual
aid is that it's such a great way into that conversation,
because what a way to build trust with someone by
showing up and being like, Oh, I have this medicine
that you need, have this food, the heat, and you
know we're you know, we're in this together. And you
know what you were saying earlier about the black panthers
(50:07):
and the government targeting them, bringing that back into this
particular historic moment, The way that the government has chosen
to deal with mutual aid organizations is to charge them
with rico crimes, try and put us in prison as terrors.
Speaker 6 (50:20):
My god.
Speaker 2 (50:20):
Yeah, So it's clearly they are not not out for us,
They're they're actively like hostile to us.
Speaker 1 (50:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (50:27):
I'm threatened by it.
Speaker 7 (50:28):
Threatened because I think again, like that's why they try
to shut down and literally killed the panthers, is because
they they showed, they really modeled in a world that
was possible for you know, for black pols to thrive
right and to create, to create systems of care that
actually allowed for folks to be sovereign. And so I
(50:48):
think now we're going to see a rise of people
really wanting to be sovereign because of so much lack
of really lack of care, even the way even the
way politicians talk to us when we're in city hall.
Speaker 1 (51:03):
Right.
Speaker 4 (51:08):
But I also want to point out too, is like
you know, and I have to always remind people like
they are threatened, they aren't awaken up because before when
we like have a few years before the pandemic, when
we were contesting against forty one to eighteen, we was
allowed to have a place to speak, and we didn't
have such a battle. Then we noticed when we started
(51:29):
to protest and started demanding things, and then they had
they had no choice. Now they go into city hall,
they don't want you to speak at all, so like
the end, so they know that there is something germinating.
That's why they're trying to draw them up, these cops
city kind of places, and they know that they cannot
sustain because capitalism is now you can't sustain it anyway.
(51:50):
But the point of it is they cannot sustain violence
on a scale of a level like that without people
in the city, in the communities rising up or finding
out turning to a solution. And that's what they don't want.
That somebody somewhere is going to rise up and get
the communities together and just top of the system, and
then that's just going to be.
Speaker 7 (52:08):
That's what they don't want. And I think that's really
and they're going to find every way to stop us.
Speaker 5 (52:13):
Yes, yeah, yeah, I think that, Like what is one
of the most beneficial things to mutual aid is the
fact that like logistically, we're organizing together, right, We're doing
logistical things, We're organizing as a group to get this
thing done. And I think that is so so important
to how we proceed from going on from now right,
(52:35):
and like also like how we relate to each other,
how we create a system together under a certain set
of values, you know, and like understanding what those values are.
And I think what is really really important to anyone
who's listening to this, who wants to do mutual.
Speaker 3 (52:52):
Aid is you have to study. You have to study
so so much.
Speaker 5 (52:57):
Yes, you don't have to you have to learn from
the past and you don't have to reinvent the wheel
and make the same mistakes.
Speaker 3 (53:07):
And also study the things in the past and apply it.
Speaker 5 (53:11):
To today, like just apply it every and like it
is so so important because a lot I think the
impetus of like Okay, I'm just going I need to
do this is find the practice of it, like we
had to do it right, But then you have to
study and realize the theory behind your practice. And it
goes back and forth and back and forth. And I
(53:31):
think that is what makes what's going to make us strong,
what's going to make us win, you know.
Speaker 3 (53:38):
And I think it's it's when I see a lot.
Speaker 5 (53:40):
Of these groups, I see a lot of people get
burnt out, fizzle out in fighting all this kind of stuff,
and it's because they don't have principles. They don't have
you know, they're not organizing in a way where it's
bigger than everybody else. It's bigger than your shit, my shit,
your trauma. This is not therapy.
Speaker 7 (54:01):
Yes, oh my gosh, I actually want to I want
to uplift what you just said there, Zen, because it is.
It calls back to what Cleo Silver said when we
had that little sort of like like a little huddle,
like an organizer huddle. She said basically that like for
the Panthers to work, Yeah, you had to be tied
with that principle together. You always have to go back
(54:23):
to that because I feel like we collectively also have
seen how fishers in our in our movements have been
created because of a lot of I feel like, and
I'm just going to bring it out at.
Speaker 1 (54:41):
Well.
Speaker 7 (54:42):
I'm not going to name names, because they know who
they are, you can self identify, but I feel like
it's important for us to really kind of bring out
also the sort of the ego aspect of this work.
And I think a lot of us, she especially in
Los Angeles, we are you know, we have some celebrity
type sort of like you know, folks or just you know,
(55:03):
really like I think, I think we also have to
really take stock of how why we do this work,
why are you in these spaces and really understanding you know. Yeah,
Like I really love this sort of idea of real study,
because even the Panthers studied together. These groups have to
study together because in that too creates like that weaving
(55:27):
of that experience together and then your principles almost like
kind of like fossilize with each other. It's like, Okay,
we know we read all this stuff together, we understand
the ideologies around it or whatever. But like, what's cool
about I think what you guys are doing is that
you have both theory and practice, Like you're really like
mirroring both study and really like engaging engaging in the work,
(55:51):
and then it becomes solid.
Speaker 4 (55:52):
So I've seen you guys.
Speaker 7 (55:54):
Grow damn Like, yes, I'm saying right now and I
was just telling Zenas before we started their to me
right now, jazz out there, it's just making the revolution
look hot and sexy. And the one thing that's great
about that is because because also at the core of
(56:14):
the founding of jazz, you got artists and artists just
know how to literally create and have always made the
revolution look beautiful to the world, and so I think
that that in itself to me is like powerful. There's
so much power in the way that you guys have
been telling the story of your work there, and I
(56:35):
want to encourage other people to do the same thing.
I don't know why I'm soone ticulous about the storytelling
of my story or like the story of whatever, but
I think because I want to. I really am hoping
that I want to leave post as a gift to
Los Angeles because I'm telling you all, like I'm talking
to about this, I'm feeling old.
Speaker 1 (57:00):
No.
Speaker 7 (57:00):
But here's the thing though, Like we also have to
remember it goes back to ego. Like the second year
that I was running Polos, already knew it wasn't mine,
like the community owned it.
Speaker 2 (57:11):
I was just.
Speaker 4 (57:13):
I was just the steward.
Speaker 7 (57:14):
I'd love to say this in in in interviews what
I always say, I'm just the motherfucker keeps the lights on,
Like I just happened to be the person who has
to pay the bills. But I think, like I think
there's got to be a way that we change the
way we lead because I feel like sometimes for folks
who kind of get caught up in this work, that
the work becomes you, and that's danger. There's danger in
(57:36):
that because if someone says shit about like your org
or your work, then you take a hit. But then
under principled organizing, the work is global, right, The work
is universal. It's not just yours. It's literally everybody's liberation.
And if you're like, well, I this is mine, I'm like, no, bro,
(57:58):
like this is not yours is this is literally the peoples.
And I think having that conversation and really for organizers,
young folks who are listening to us right now, I
really really hope you guys are taking stock of why
you're trying to get into mutual aid because one, it's
dangerous work, right especially in the climate that we're in.
Speaker 4 (58:17):
And two, it's hard work. There's so much.
Speaker 7 (58:19):
Behind the scenes that you're not seeing that. It's not sexy,
as much as jazz makes it sexy. It takes a
lot of heart to really keep showing up to this work.
So you really have to ask yourself while you're doing it.
Speaker 4 (58:38):
And that's where we'll leave the conversation this week. If
you like what Melissa Niel and Zen had to say
good news. There's more where that came from, and we'll
be releasing the second part of our roundtable discussion on
our next episode. Until then, you can follow their work online.
Melissa can be found over at www dot Melissa Asadero
dot com or Lowspantry dot org. You can follow Neil
(59:03):
Substack at Neil Blakemore dot substack dot com, and you
can follow Zen at her website at zenseeki zaa dot com.
And as always, you can stay up to date and
in touch with Whedianhouse and with me on our social
media at www dot Weedanhouse dot com and on Instagram
(59:26):
at Whedianhouse, and remember to tell your friends to subscribe.
The show has come a long way and I'm excited
for it to continue to grow. Until then, may we
again meet in the light of understanding. Willian House is
a production of iHeartRadio. It is written, posted, and created
(59:47):
by me Theo Henderson. Our producers are Jamie Loftus, Lyra Smith,
and Katie Fisher. Our editor is Adam Wong, and our
logo art is also by Katiefisher. Thanks for listen.
Speaker 6 (01:00:00):
St
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Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.