June 17, 2025 • 54 mins
This week, Theo reports from Little Tokyo in Los Angeles, where necessary protest was met with violent retaliation from ICE, the LAPD, and the National Guard after the city was targeted for mass deportation. He reflects on the intersection of being unhoused and undocumented, and who gets left behind -- then, an interview with unhoused activist Secret.1Add reaction
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Previously on Weedian House.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
So many young people when they turn eighteen and they've
had the state running their life since childhood, and not
in a great way. So it's often very hard to
get foster youth to participate in extended foster care.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Yes, there are incredible young people who manage to do
it and somehow get to college and somehow have fulfilling,
productive lives, and some of them are in my book
Boards of the State. But overall, fewer than five percent
of kids who age out of foster care will ever
get for your college degree. Fewer than five percent the
(00:43):
fifty nine percent or something are getting locked up.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
This is wrong.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
This is wrong.
Speaker 5 (00:58):
Welcome back to Weedian House. I'm your host, Theo Henderson.
Stay tuned for an update on Los Angeles ICE violent
immigration tactics and the impact it's had on the unhoused community.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
But first, unhoused.
Speaker 5 (01:16):
News, because the news is moving very quickly. We are
recording this on Tuesday, June tenth. Our first story takes
place in Summit, New Jersey. The Summer City Council approved
plans to jail unhoused people unwilling to accept help. They
(01:37):
can face thirty days in jail. And be fined up
to five hundred dollars only if they're unwilling to work
with social service providers. Penalties will also be enforced if
a person refuses to be transport to available indoor housing
or an emergency shelter summit. Mayor Elizabeth Fagin said the
(02:00):
ordinance is another layer and the opportunity for engagement. New
Jersey's houseless population in twenty twenty four was over twelve thousand,
with children making up more from one fifth of the total,
according to Monarch Housing Associates. Our next story involves ICE
(02:22):
ICE Immigration Law Enforcement rabbed and unhoused man from a
San Diego houseless shelter on May thirty, of twenty twenty five.
ICE has taken at least two unhoused undocumented men into custody.
The first one was the resident of a large tent
at sixteenth Street and Newton Avenue in San Diego. The
second one was at a shelter downtown. Two ICE agents
(02:46):
showed up at seven fifty in the morning, listing the
current residence name and a photo of the resident. The
agents will not allow a copy of the warrant and
that's unhoused news. The arc of a moral universe's law,
(03:09):
but it bends towards justice. Doctor King tells us this
leader of the civil rights movement had seen many unjust,
cruel things, yet held out sincere hope and love to
protect himself from drinking from the.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Well of hate.
Speaker 5 (03:27):
This moment in time serves as a compass for what
we are experiencing. We are experiencing grave cruelty at the
hands of the President of the United States Donald Trump.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
Why thousands of National Guard troops and hundreds of marines
to protect federal law enforcement from the attacks of a
vicious and violent mob.
Speaker 5 (03:49):
These past few days, I have seen firsthand the effects
of the White House sanctioned violence on unarmed civilians under
the fiction of law and order.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
The White House has approved violence.
Speaker 5 (04:06):
On his citizenry under the guise of law and order criminality,
and for the most part, our citizenry and mainstream media
has peraded his view and shaped their story to his pronouncements.
The issue of immigration is loaded with tropes of deserving
and undeserving people. Given that we are blaming and shaming society,
(04:27):
this dovetails nicely into our belief system that what is
being done currently is right and deserves praise, but.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
What is being done.
Speaker 5 (04:37):
Families are being targeted, legal immigrants, tourists and unhoused people
are being accosted by playing closed people whisked way without
a trace or way to find out targeted people's whereabouts.
Speaker 6 (04:53):
Is the property of the church.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
This is down a memorial Christian church and we are
not okay on our property.
Speaker 5 (04:59):
Recently, the Western Hotel in downtown LA hosted law enforcement
and nice only to have them targeting the staff to
show if they are legal residents. What's even more audacious
than this is that the president is fine with this,
and it's sending more National Guard to quell the protests
and unrest.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
We didn't have the military in there, the National Guard,
and then we also set in some marines.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
We had some bad people.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
People they look in your face and they spit right
in your face, their animals.
Speaker 5 (05:29):
His aim seems twofold to silence the dissident, and sameir
that just calls by labeling them insurrectionists.
Speaker 6 (05:39):
These are paid insurrectionists or agitators or troublemakers. You can
call it whatever you want. And we ended it and
we have in custody some very bad people.
Speaker 5 (05:50):
Sadly, they are people who are invested in their own
people's oppression, which leads me to another quote by doctor
King that says nothing in the world is more dangerous
and sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
What is also not smart about the.
Speaker 5 (06:07):
Situation is the belief that we will be spared from
the machin nations of this dangerous leader. The unhoused community
is linked in this forced deportation debacle and has received
very little notice or attention. As it were, Ice is
going down to houseless shelters and joining sweeps to hunt
down the undocumented unhoused community members with city leaders tacit agreement, study,
(06:32):
blind indifference, or paralyzed silence. In one way, this will
shrink visible houselessness and make Los Angeles Olympics ready. Many
of the citizenry have a dim view of the young house,
which adds to the harmful stereotypes that on company undocumented unhoused. Thus,
(06:53):
empathy is hard to come by.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
This is why we the in House.
Speaker 5 (06:58):
It's going to spend more time on this is you
in our next episodes. In order to join any cause,
education on the subject is paramount, but a guiding too
to this is empathy. So use your heart to love somebody,
and if your heart is big enough, use it to
love everybody. In the final words of doctor King, we
(07:20):
are tied together in the single garment of destiny. When
we come back, we will hear from Secret, who speaks
to yet another intersection of unhoused identity. Welcome back to
Weedian House. Antho Henderson, our next guest, has unique observations
(07:46):
of his own displacement and struggles here.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Secret story.
Speaker 4 (07:51):
I grew up at war with the US State as
a product of my birth, through no particular fault and
perhaps no particular choice of my own. What that means
in basic language is that I grew up being native
in the US, you know, occupation of what most people
call the United States of America. So that leads to
(08:12):
a certain amount of problems at different things that happen
in life. Plus additionally, you know, my dad's Irish, So
then that leaves that weird in between space where you're like,
you know, you're never going to be considered quote unquote white,
You're never going to be considered by some at least
to be quote unquote one hundred percent natives. So then
(08:33):
you're like, well what am I? Then well, I'm a human.
I mean, that's the easy answer. Anyways. You know, life happens,
Families happen, A lot of problems happen, Capitalism happens. That's
the word I'm sure comes up a lot. So there
was a lot of violence happening around the home. I'm
not here to talk bad about my folks. I love
my parents, but there was a lot of violence happening
(08:55):
around the home, verbal, physical at times, a lot of
things like that. Eventually the vorce happened. I started getting
in trouble with like the court system, by not going
to school because I was depressed and I just stay
up all night. I just didn't go to school. I
had no problem learning, I just didn't like going to school. Eventually,
(09:16):
I started hanging out on the streets a lot, and
I still had a place over my head. I was
like eleven or twelve, and I started just kind of
hanging out all night and just not going home because
I didn't like what was happening at home. Necessarily, it
wasn't a good place. It didn't feel like good vibes.
By that point in time, Dad was angry all the time.
Mom was drinking a lot. Again, I'm not here to
(09:37):
talk bad about him. I've been angry at times, I've
drank a lot. Who am I to like place Dougia made.
I'm just talking about what happened and the consequences of
what happened. So, like, you know, by this point of time,
I'm out hanging out and just trying to avoid everything.
Life keeps moving along twelve thirteen. By fifteen, I'd gotten
(10:00):
sick of bouncing back and forth for mom and dad
so much. Somehow it seemed like the right thing for
me to do to get my own place at fifteen
years old. So I had like this room for ret
that I had from a punk rock band that lasted.
Speaker 6 (10:15):
For a while.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
You know, where's a fifteen year old living in a
punk rock house going to end up in the end
on the streets. So by that point in time, I'd
started engaging in certain things.
Speaker 6 (10:30):
I was a drug dealer.
Speaker 4 (10:32):
I sold weed, you know, so I was paying my
way through stuff off a weed, helping other people and
stuff off a weed at that point in time or
whatever as well too, because kind of the people who
taught me how to how to sell basically were also
from the streets, and they also help people out because
they were like, well, I mean that kid needs a sandwich.
(10:53):
You know, these days people use words like mutual aid.
For me, the first mutual aid people and I saw
were wheat dealers, honestly though, you know, and a couple
of pump rock folks, hippie cats and stuff like that. Anyways,
life just kept drifting on. I hit some ups in life.
I wasn't always on the streets all these years. I mean,
you see the grays. I had some success in corporate life, sales, marketing,
(11:19):
managerial offices. I've worked for nonprofits. I've done construction work,
labor work like outdoor tree care, all different kinds of
whatever it is you can imagine. I probably made it.
I've made soap lotions. I just kept ending up on
the streets. I just could never get enough stability to
(11:40):
get myself quite right. Like I had the ability to
get somewhere, but I never had the stability to stay somewhere,
if that makes any sense.
Speaker 6 (11:50):
You know. It's like people look at someone like me,
How could I end up on the streets.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
I'm smart, I'm intelligent, right, Well, that's kind of how
that sort of thing happened. And I never felt emotionally
safe for a long enough period of time of my
life where like the fruits of that emotional stability never
had a chance to write.
Speaker 6 (12:11):
But I never got to enjoy that. So, you know,
one thing led to another.
Speaker 4 (12:16):
On the streets, off the streets, on the streets, off
the streets, I don't know the amount of times crashing
on couches, crashing on benches.
Speaker 6 (12:25):
There was a place we used to call the heaters,
and we were kids.
Speaker 4 (12:27):
It was this building like by the U of M campus,
and it spat out like this kind of heat all night,
but it was a wet heat, so it would keep
you kind of warm, but then it would keep be
kind of wet, cold, kind of wet. So you just
sit there sort of miserable all night, like just by
this heater, sort of trying to have sleep for like
fifteen minutes at a stretch. And eventually my folks died.
(12:51):
And after that there was a really bad period of time.
I was using a lot the substance sat many nos.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Up What is up? That's that ecstasy is it?
Speaker 4 (13:02):
Or PCB no, although in my younger days I did
use you know, like xc mdm A or whatever.
Speaker 6 (13:11):
Up.
Speaker 4 (13:11):
Up is what the kids on the streets call trystal
meth in feat of me. Now, okay, okay, at least
out in this in these in the speck of the
woods or whatever, or branch or the city.
Speaker 6 (13:20):
If you will, or bathroom. Yeah okay, yeah yeah. So
it's it's crystal math.
Speaker 4 (13:26):
It's just uh, it's just that the people call it up,
so like they called they called crystal meth up, and
then they call opiate's down.
Speaker 6 (13:34):
So if it's.
Speaker 4 (13:34):
Heroine or if it's FETANHLS and that's down, you're on
that down. You're on that up. Means you're doing like meth,
you're on that up. Okay, yup. Anyways, I eventually got
stick to doing math there for that. After my folks died,
I went up to Portland looking for some hugs and hugs.
I don't know what I was thinking there. I didn't
(13:55):
do my research. I didn't find that. I found a
whole lot of trouble. Well, I found open air shooting
galleries and people really not looking like they're having the
greatest time in life, and like probably more human misery
than I think I've ever seen up until that point.
Speaker 6 (14:13):
Ever.
Speaker 4 (14:14):
And the first thing I thought to myself was like,
this is going to hit like the Midwest pretty fast,
like given a couple of years. I didn't think it
would be like a year later or even several months later.
So several months later, the events of George Floyd happened,
you know, the murder of George Floyd happened, city rose up.
(14:34):
A lot of different things occurred out of that. A
lot of different things occurred out of that. One of
the things that happened was the Sheridan Hotel, which had
been common Deer or some sort of arrangement had been
struck by volunteers to open it as a free hotel.
This is during a time of COVID lockdown and lockdown
(14:55):
because of riots and all these other different things happening, right,
So that goes on. And then I had been back
in Portland briefly for a period of time during all
of this, where again things sorch is still not well.
And I got back here and my friend was telling
me about what was happening at Powderhorn East and Powderhorn West,
(15:17):
so I went and checked it out. And like you know,
Powderhorn East Powderhorn West Park, it's like this gigantic multi
block complex or just a park, not complex, but just
a large park in the south side of Minneapolis, and
pretty much the entirety of it had been turned into
an encampment.
Speaker 6 (15:38):
Oh so, I mean estimates very on how many people
were there.
Speaker 4 (15:43):
It's my estimate that they're at least five hundred and
two one thousand plus people there at the peak of it,
Like five hundred and two one thousand plus people just
show them in the park in Minneapolis. And then this
sort of movement, this mutual aid thing, whatever you want
to call it, popped up out of that, which has
proven to be a good thing and also came with
(16:06):
some baggage that was unexpected as well. All of this
has really profoundly changed my life, particularly the last time around,
because before it was always a unique journey. It was
me and a couple of friends, a couple of plucky kids.
We would look out for each other, like there are
people trying to pray on us, like you know, predators
(16:27):
when we were kids, and like we would stand up
to them, like get the hell out of here. Can
I say that? Yeah, but you know, get the heck
get out of here or whatever, like leave our friends alone,
like you know what I mean, Like just no, you
can't come around here, like go I was used to
a lot of stuff like that. I'd never seen like
the scale of suffering that I saw. So when I
(16:50):
hit Powderhorn, I put up a tent there, and then
a couple of days later, people are going to speak
at the park and wreck to discuss, you know, whether
or not we would be allowed to stay there under
a sanctuary status at that point in time.
Speaker 6 (17:05):
And someone was like, I hear.
Speaker 4 (17:07):
You around here and you're helping out and you speak
real good, like you should come speak with us, come
with us, And I was just like, I don't know
about this, but I did it. So I became like
a public speaker for a while. And I have really
mixed feelings about that, especially considering that my own circumstances
(17:28):
improved hardly, not at all throughout any of that. I
kind of feel like a lot of people had their
resume off of the life and work of people like
me and many many others actually, but that's subject for later.
I just saw so much this time around, and it
got worse than it had ever been for me. I
lost a lot of friends within a couple of years
(17:48):
period of time.
Speaker 5 (17:49):
Was this student to COVID or was this happening life
circumstances or.
Speaker 4 (17:53):
This is life circumstances and stuff like that. In some
cases this is like directly result of the streets, and
others it's a result of what I am going to
refer to later, which known as alistatic load. Alistatic load
is the lifetime accumulation of stress in a human being,
as measured by cortisol levels. So you hear that stress
(18:14):
and fear kill, okay, So this measures your lifetime accumulation
of those things. And if you have a high alistatic load,
there is a correlation between pretty bad health outcomes, one
of the most famous being a case study of a
black woman who was from a quote unquote lower socioeconomic
(18:36):
background who pulled themselves up quote unquote by their bootstraps.
I think they got a full ride the Harvard Yale,
became a CEO of a fortune five hundred company, had
a healthy life, ate well, moderate drinking, nothing crazy, nothing bad,
just good living right, and died in extremely early death.
(18:57):
And they died in extremely early death. It's theorized because
of their life early on in life, because of the
things that they had internalized, the traumas and the things
that it surrounded them as a result of their upbringing
their backgrounds the things that they had seen that that
had permanently shortened their human life span. So I believe
(19:19):
in some cases it's due to that, the permanent shortening
of a human lifespan from trauma, stress, the streets, addictions,
mental illnesses, physical illnesses, and I I just saw so
much this last time, and then finally for me, it
ended with the whole using part of it. I mean,
at least as far as using like alcohol or hard substances.
(19:42):
Kelly Sober. Last year, I woke up in a hospital
coming out of a coma.
Speaker 6 (19:48):
I thought it was nineteen ninety five for a little bit.
Speaker 4 (19:51):
Not the coolest feeling and stuff, And it really just
has me asking a lot of questions of how did
I come to be here and how did that even
come to be a part of speaking on behalf of
homeless people, and yet still find myself in that hospital bed.
Speaker 5 (20:05):
Did you come up with any answers or did you
are you still searching?
Speaker 4 (20:08):
I've come up with some answers. I've come up with
some answers. A lot of people tend not to like
the answers I come up with. Some people kind of
know anyways, I mean, my story is just there's there's
just so much weird stuff going on in my life story.
I mean, like the day before I quit drinking last year,
I de escalated the gun situation. You know, someone was like,
(20:30):
I'll pop you right here, right now, and I was
just like, no, you won't. They're like what, and I
was like, no, you won't. And I was just like,
look like, I'm not afraid to die today. I have
nothing left to lose. You have stuff left to lose,
and I don't want you to lose those things.
Speaker 6 (20:45):
Actually, Like if you.
Speaker 4 (20:46):
Pull that trigger, it's going to cause a lot of
problems for you. I don't have anything left to lose,
So like, no, you're not going to pull that trigger.
Speaker 6 (20:53):
Like I'm not afraid of you.
Speaker 4 (20:54):
And that's just not within most people's normal frame of
of life or whatever. And I used to think that
my job was to maybe be like out there doing
that sort of thing all the time, de escalating situations,
boots on the ground front lyne on the streets. But
the more I think about it, the more I think
seeing bigger pictures is kind of my niche or whatever,
(21:19):
and kind of what I want to talk about a
lot more I guess you know.
Speaker 5 (21:23):
Interesting, So you recently just mentioned that you just you
came out of a coma.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
What year ago? Right?
Speaker 5 (21:29):
What got you started back on to drinking?
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Right?
Speaker 5 (21:33):
Were you drinking? Were drinking or with the accident. I
don't want to zoom because there's a lot of reasons.
Speaker 4 (21:39):
Well, I mean, okay, so for the reason I went
into coma was shortly after I had actually stopped drinking.
So what happens in my case or whatever is decompensated cirrhosis.
Your liver starts to feel really bad, and there's a
part of the liver that's kind of like a dead zone.
Speaker 6 (21:58):
It's trying to push material through that dead zone.
Speaker 4 (22:00):
It doesn't work, so your body traits these little veins
that aren't supposed to be there. Over time, those can
get really inflamed, they can burst, leading the sudden death.
Speaker 6 (22:11):
I'll skip the gross parts or whatever.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
But so I got brought to the hospital with the
hemoglobe and a five point five and then was in
a coma for about a week and a half, two
weeks something like that, and then at a hospital for
another couple of weeks after that, crashed again, had emergency surgery,
and now I'm kind of alive somehow, somehow.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
I'm glad to hear that you made it or recover
it through it.
Speaker 5 (22:38):
What are the things that when you had this I
almost say epiphany is medical emergency. Did you walk away
with new insight on things? Or was it a rehash
of the old?
Speaker 4 (22:50):
I felt like I've been playing games with my life
for a long time, and like i'd known who I
was to be. What I am had been crystallizing for
some time, and I felt that I almost blew my
chance to do some of the most important things that
I could do with all this time here. And I
(23:12):
suffered a long, long, long way to get to where
I'm at today. So to blow all that suffering for
nothing seems like a tremendous waste. I mean like, I
look at suffering almost like a superpower. So I kind
of good at it, right, Like, oh, some suffering like
feed me. I mean not really, it really is very traumatizing, actually,
(23:33):
you know what I mean. But I just had a
renewed sense of I'm put here to do something more
than just my own life than to just consume resources
and say hi and be friendly to people until I'm.
Speaker 6 (23:47):
Not here anymore.
Speaker 4 (23:48):
And that there's a lot of people that need help,
and that even if I don't care about my own self,
surely I can find the caring in my heart for others.
So I kind of had a renewed feeling of wanting
to get back to work on that sort of thing.
Speaker 5 (24:02):
And what type of work that you are doing now
to make good on the promise that you a knew
epiphany that you have.
Speaker 4 (24:10):
Well, one thing that people have always told me that
I've always resented hearing was that you need to put
on your own oxygen mask first. I've always been running
on pure trauma off of nothing.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
You know.
Speaker 4 (24:24):
People would ask me what I want for breakfast or
coffee and a cigarette, you know. And I'm trying to
self care, which is something I've never been very good at,
trying to self care and just take care of doing
the everyday things I need to do to make my
one year of sobriety, to get my health going, to
(24:47):
to keep that forward progress going. I'm about to make
changes to my diet for another level of you know,
a lot of people here cirrhosis and you think that
you're for sure going to die in like six months
or something.
Speaker 6 (24:58):
That's not always the case. Even if you have a
very severe pharmacerhroosis, it's not always the case. It's possible
to live a very long time. There's no guarantees, but
it's possible. And if you told me that I would
be good enough to walk around or go for a
short bike ride like six months ago, I'd have been like,
no way. But I can do that now.
Speaker 4 (25:18):
So I'm focusing on that, and I'm focusing on trying
to get my own economic.
Speaker 6 (25:23):
House in order.
Speaker 4 (25:25):
I hate being about money, but while we have to
live underneath that system of money and governance and these things,
it makes a lot more sense for someone like me
to just go out and figure out a way to
punch a clock, get that check, get that cheddar, do
what you gotta do, player, you know what I mean.
Speaker 6 (25:41):
Then it does show me to.
Speaker 4 (25:44):
Ask for twenty dollars, cyber bag in on Venmo and
this and that endlessly forever. Not that there's anything wrong
with those things. I've lived off those things that many
times in my life. They were absolutely essential for my survival.
But I'm trying to also transition my life in the
being a more stable person. And if I'm a more
stable person, I feel that since I'm used to living
(26:05):
off of nothing, if I was making you know, one
one hundred and twenty plus again like I used to
once on a time, a long time ago, while still
living off of basically nothing, that's a lot of money
that could be used to help people to start out
my other initiatives like basically trading ways for communities to
grow our own food largely free of corporate or government
(26:26):
dependence of any kind.
Speaker 6 (26:28):
Again, more about that later.
Speaker 5 (26:30):
Okay, I'm going to take a quick step back. It
seems to me if from hearing your story and just
hearing it told in this way, it seems that your beginnings,
your origin story, began with trauma. We're dealing with challenging
things that you didn't act. For one, dealing with the
(26:50):
ambiguity of who you are. But also your parents were
dealing with trauma. It sounds like they were, because I
don't believe that they just did all these things because
it was just fun to do. I believe that they
were dealing with traumas and dealing with the history of
the world that we live in, dealing with a native,
a mother or an indigenous and as well as the
(27:13):
challenges that she probably went through and add to that
where your father was an Irish person who also dealt
with his own form of discrimination and trying to navigate
a world dealing with that, dealing with capitalism. I'm sure
that they did the things that they tried to cope
with these deliterious type of situations in the way that
(27:35):
they do. How because there is no book on how
to do something healthy when you're in an unhealthy environment
such as that, and unfortunately you seem to had to
be absorbed into that as a child and not being
able to even just to thinking it back to my
own childhood, thinking about telling my siblings like we were
(27:55):
a child trying to make sense of adult situations that
we couldn't do, and there was nothing we can do.
We can't blame ourselves over it, of course, and we
can also look with more of an understanding or empathetic eye,
with understanding that they didn't have were adults, they didn't
have the answers, so hind the world were going to
have the answers if they didn't have the answers, So,
(28:16):
you know, to absolve ourselves in a way or acquit
ourselves instead of beating ourselves up.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Am I off track?
Speaker 5 (28:24):
Or off base with this, or if I am pleased,
don't hesitate to correct me if I'm wrong into this.
Speaker 4 (28:31):
No, I would definitely agree with a lot of what
you're saying, And for that matter, that would be why
I identify with anti imperialist sentiments, anti settler colonialist sentiments,
and anti capitalism and international system of finance that praise
on the entirety of the human race and all life
(28:54):
on this planet for that matter. So like, where did
my trauma really come from? I could look at my
parent and so look at their actions, but what caused
their actions and what caused the actions that led to that,
and so on and so forth, and it really comes
back to like this poisonoustry, it's capitalism, it's patriarchy, it's
things of that nature.
Speaker 5 (29:14):
Well, how did you get to this such a more
enriched or enlightened position, because I'm like, because these those
terms are those kind of observations take some time or
it's some I want to say, damask and experience, but
there takes some reflection onto that. How did you know,
during navigating your life as it were, to come to
these conclusions?
Speaker 4 (29:35):
Well, Lokei says, on a specific track, I've known the
truth since I was a small little boy, I'm a
product of the system. I was born to destroy, And
I referenced being at war with the state just to
the product of being born, you know, particularly fault of
my own. The first time i'd have gone pulled out
on me by a police officer, I was like maybe
nine or ten or.
Speaker 6 (29:55):
Something like that.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Yeah. Wow.
Speaker 4 (29:56):
They were doing a warrant suite for one of my
my mom's husbands who had a drinking in the park
ticket that they felt that they needed to knock on
the door and sweep to the apartment with like nine
to ten police officers pointing guns at little kids, and
you know, our moms are livid and screaming and yelling
(30:17):
at them, and this, that and the other. So those
would be that would be a point in time at
which I started realized that things aren't quite right in
the world. Another point in time would have been let's
see Political Science one oh one. Before we open the book,
the instructor began speaking with us about othering quote unquote
othering and it being the basis of almost all conflict
(30:39):
between human beings.
Speaker 6 (30:41):
Othering.
Speaker 4 (30:42):
Before we even open the textbook or anything, I would
identify that as being a point, the fact that I
looked like capitalism and how one might do something about
it from learning about it. I've worked in business sales marketing.
I know how the devil's tricks works, you know, I
(31:02):
know how the devil pulls the wall over your eyes.
Not necessarily your eyes, but you know, metaphorically exact right right,
So that would be another thing. And then large chunks
of this I'd always kind of just felt or known
deep down inside. I've been watching fascism creep worldwide and
domestically for well over a decade. I've been watching like
(31:27):
the advent of leftism on the internet has told the
walls the corporate or the corporate walls, and the memes
and stuff, but really it was it's just the events
of the past several years, and being on the streets
since my folks died, I've seen so much suffering. How
can I not understand that there is absolutely no chance
(31:48):
that a government or the state is capable of saving me.
When I'm looking around and I see a thousand people
in a park that I used to play in as
a little kid, and I'm not blaming any single one
of us for being in that park, I'm blaming the
system that made that happen, that put us in that park,
you know what I mean. And then who's helping out?
Is it the state that caused the problem to begin with? No,
(32:09):
it's not the state that causes it's not the state
helping out at all. If anything, they've done nothing but
work against while taking photo op eds and you know,
like the different newspapers that are favorable to them, etc.
And it's the people largely. It's largely large groups of
community organizing and groups of community. Some are over some
(32:34):
not just going out and helping out. It's rolling up
my sleeve, skating the work, doing propane drops, helping people
get their tents up when it's negative thirty negative forty
windshill and it's collapsed, and they're just shown out there
with the girl or something and a partially collapse tent
and no heater on in there, and you're like, oh me,
(32:54):
you're gonna die if we don't get you a tent
up and gets you like a heater going out of there. No,
like this is so bad, you know, And then just
watching and continuing for winter after winter at this point
really will do a lot, but large chunks of this
happened during the events of George Floyd. I was watching
(33:14):
part of their drones fly over a city. I watched
people riot in multiple cities. I saw black heck helicopters
at ultra you know, Ultra low.
Speaker 6 (33:28):
And I started.
Speaker 4 (33:30):
Educating myself on a broken cell phone in a tent
while still drinking, just sitting there with my bottle, looking
at a tent. At first, all I had was subdot media,
which is an anarchist media collective based out of Canada.
It's the work of European anarchists and the work of
indigenous collectives up there. And then just kept studying and
(33:52):
reading and then trying to look at things from different
perspectives and then applying things to the to now, to
reality instead of just what happened one hundred years ago.
What did someone think a hundred years ago? Well, what
did Karl Marx know about like living in the hood?
What did Karl Marx know about trapping?
Speaker 6 (34:10):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 4 (34:11):
Like what a Cala Marks know about living in a
tent with like a thousand people and like there's a
cell phone charging station over there and they're selling meth
all night, Like what does car Marx know about that.
I mean, I think the cat had some interesting ideas,
but I also think it's important that we form ideas
here and now that make up the reality around us
(34:32):
here and now and our friends and family and so
on and so forth. So that's where a lot of
that happened for me.
Speaker 5 (34:39):
We'll be back with more from Secret after this break.
Welcome back to see is Theo Henderson with Weedyan House.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
Here's the rest of my interview with Secret.
Speaker 5 (34:55):
I don't want to sidetrack and get off your story,
but I come from a very but religious background and
it was basically a cult, and I broke free from it.
But the thing of it is that the insight that
I learned from breaking free from the cult, I see
some of the tracings of it in the left of spaces,
(35:16):
and it's very delicate to tell them how dangerous and
how easy you can fall into becoming a fanatic, or
how it created a hyper vigilance for me. And then
I noticed sometimes trying to remind them, like, you know,
we live into here now right now. Though these people
that have raped these writings was illustrious and probably timely
(35:37):
in their time, there's a lot of things that have evolved,
it didn't just stop, you know, Like you know, we
have the fanatics that believe the.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
Bible was written by God and that was it.
Speaker 5 (35:46):
It's word for word, and you know, discounting all the
other people, the hatred, the prejudices that they poured into
the book, and the limited scope a foresight of what
was going on. And I say the same when I
see or hear people make stock quotes in spaces like that,
and I have to say, well, let's not always use that.
(36:10):
Let's make sure we're a little bit more malleable to
the times and be able to apply it. Because one
of the things I do notice, and I'll give you
just one example to be even clearer. I remember a
few years ago I was talking to some of the
leaders about some of the statements that they were saying,
and because I come from that quote, but it just
(36:31):
set off to all types of alarms, like you don't
understand what you're saying and how dangerous this is and
how you can be set onto another path. And when
I will say things like you know, here's one, well,
we need everybody, and I had to say, you absolutely
don't need everybody, because our history of any type of
(36:52):
revolutionary is always a small group of committed people have
made effective change and if you wanted to get the
coop by y'all moment, it's just not going to happen.
But also to there people that are toxic, we don't
need toxicity in order because that then this defeats the purpose.
If we're trying to minimize harm and toxicity, we don't
(37:13):
want to have the person that's being toxic and transigent
and trying to derail the movement. And then well that's
not what we say. I'm like, well, when we say
that you don't bring the caveato, you don't bring I
want to stand an enlightened perspective, you don't bring perspectives.
That's just just a cookie cutter response. But it also
(37:33):
could be very dangerous and how we frame it, especially
when we're dealing with necessarily conflict, Like I say, because
I come from that background, I saw how toxic it was,
and some things in how the isolation and the constant
stock of phrases, the regurgitation of stock phrases when you're
(37:55):
making you know, like for example, like you they have
got ill, and we can use biblical statements saying you know,
you're really not ill medically, you have a demon in you,
and you need to pray about it. You need to
you know, go, you know, you need to quit cold turkey.
We need to put lay hands on you and you
even if you had a medical emergency, we would not
(38:17):
have rushed you to the hospital. We would have had
to you know, had spent all night singing, chanting, and
if you got into a coma, you know, it's just
God's will. So I seen extreme examples of that. I've
seen how were people that were suffering from depression or
suffering from pseudo sidal ideation, how they would discounted and
(38:37):
then they were made to feel bad. You know, there's
got to be a balance between sometimes of the moment
of reality and then to this austere belief system that's
totally unrealistic.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
That's what I come with.
Speaker 5 (38:52):
And when the movements and see and I see, I
can see how this could be led into some dangerous wards.
That's all all I'm saying.
Speaker 4 (39:00):
Yeah, I mean, well, I could talk about a couple
of hours on the whole.
Speaker 6 (39:04):
Lot of what we just talked there.
Speaker 4 (39:08):
Yeah, yeah, I would very much have the time to
do that, actually, because I have my own experiences with
the pseudo cult type thing. Although it wasn't overtly religious,
it qualifies or whatever. Yeah, you know, left right spaces
all this stuff.
Speaker 6 (39:25):
Obviously, I have my leftist.
Speaker 4 (39:27):
Views personally me personally, I myself do now when you're
talking about the wider world of the streets and people
who live life as an unsheltered individual, and I mean, like,
I kind of look at that term sometimes, like was
that someone from the streets that came up with that term?
Does someone just wake up out of their tent one day,
(39:49):
take a slug off that E and J and say,
you know what, I'm a chronically unsheltered individual from the streets,
My guy, I don't think that's the case. I just don't.
Although it certainly possible, I just don't. But I like
to frame things in terms of just the streets and
in terms of intersectionality, specifically actually in terms of the streets,
(40:13):
because I can't think of a single type of oppression
where you won't find an intersectionality at the level of
the streets.
Speaker 6 (40:20):
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4 (40:21):
Are you talking about women's rights, women's bodily autonomy and
stuff like that. These are issues happening at the level
of the streets. Bodily autonomy is also happening at the
level of the streets as far as whether or not
a system deems someone to take care of themselves or
other human beings.
Speaker 6 (40:38):
Who are they? Who's the system? Who really is anyone
to decide these things. There's a whole lot of questions there.
And then when you look at the streets, you see
people coming in from the left and they're pushing their
leftist views that are there's personally into worlds that may
not align with that world of a housed leftist. In
(40:59):
my experience, I'm frequently invalidated. Has a drunk ass from
a tent. They won't say that, you know, they're not
going to say that, not to me, of course, of course, of.
Speaker 4 (41:10):
Course, but I'm invalidated, has a drunk, mentally unwell person,
heavily traumatized from a tent. All of these things are true,
by the way, but they'll invalidate me with that at
the same time they want to hold me accountable. Has
a comrade has housed comrade as someone who lives in
the world that they live in, the shares and the values,
(41:32):
the more's the ways of communication that they have chosen
for themselves socially has a group. And that just doesn't
line up for me, because, like, okay, I see accusations
getting tossed around.
Speaker 6 (41:48):
People's screaming you know whose streets are streets? You know
what I mean?
Speaker 4 (41:51):
Like, no justice, no streets? Right, no justice, no streets?
Where's our own internal justice? I don't really see it.
So you have these wild accusations darting around about this
person or that person. The accusations changed from year to year.
There's never really any proof, never any sort of process
(42:11):
or anything like that. Now, I don't know what it's
like in the world of the housed white leftists and
all that. Okay, like where I come from, if you
act like that, you get checked. I'm sorry you said,
what about who back it up? What you're talking about?
Speaker 6 (42:25):
Then?
Speaker 4 (42:27):
Yet that's not the way it works. So then people
get upset because their names getting smeared through the mud,
typically because there's usually standing up to the power structure also,
and I just I see a lot of problems with that.
I see problems with housed people imposing what makes them
(42:49):
comfortable inside of their world, in their mind and their heart,
their their places in the spaces that are not theirs
where these things may not work, where they talk about
things like tru and stuff, and I'm like, I've worked
with people I don't trust out at camps. I've worked
with people I hate their guts, I don't like them.
Let's use them a better word, I don't like them.
(43:12):
We have to work together. If there's no one else
out here, we got to do it, you know. And
I just feel like a lot of people at times
people don't understand that, or at times people try to
talk me out of ideas I had, like pr marketing.
I wanted to actually get an email list, hook up
with the five OZHO one C three, and get an
(43:34):
actual call center going. So instead of putting out like
these you know, venmo s and such on social media.
I mean, keep doing that too, but to actually have
like a membership list, and as well as to be
able to help shape narratives at the grassroots level to
counter what's being happening, you know, from the media and
all this other stuff, right, because the media always will
(43:54):
bring up the trauma, the crime, the violence, So to
counter this other stuf, like, well, hey, we worked on
this project and we got a bunch of people together
and put together some meat artwork. Hope you liked it.
Hope it made it look a little less scary for
you when you're walking by with your children. That kind
of the thing. People told me that that that was
sus that was capitalistic, and I like, at the time,
(44:18):
I was drinking and my thinking was a little fledgling
still perhaps, so I kind of didn't know what to
say to that, but it didn't seem right.
Speaker 1 (44:25):
But it's bizarre.
Speaker 5 (44:26):
I'm sorry, but it's bizarre because you know, even in
our spaces now too, that there's still this effort of
doing some outreach for like, for example, reaching across the
aisle to the Nimbi. So the most virulent of people
that despise on house people trying to get them to
understand what they're saying is wrong or painful and harmful.
(44:48):
So I mean, that's just amazing that they would say
that because they can make the same argument for this
that statement, because there are movements that are literally doing that.
Speaker 4 (44:58):
So yeah, I just feel like they were really everyone
was really fired up from the events of George Floyd, Okay,
and everyone was real fired up on f twelve and this,
that and the other, and just like smash it all.
Speaker 6 (45:11):
And I'm just like, you know, that's great.
Speaker 4 (45:13):
And all, But Johnny or Susie over here, they got
to like try to come up with some money. They're
trying to get their kids back from shop protective services
or whatever, you know what I mean, Like we need
to get them like a stable job and a stable crib,
like whatever gets them that the quickest.
Speaker 6 (45:30):
Do that.
Speaker 4 (45:31):
Okay, if you want to fight your ideological wars, do
it in your neighborhoods, with your funds, with your own peoples.
Don't use homeless people his ponds in your ideological wars
versus the right, the government, or the international capitalist system. Basically,
though I'm myself align with those things, you know what
I mean, Like I myself am against like capitalism. I
(45:54):
just take kind of offense because at points in time
it feels like folks on the street are being used
as ponds by folks from.
Speaker 6 (46:02):
The extreme left.
Speaker 4 (46:03):
And I only point that out because most people wouldn't
think to look there. Okay, that's the only reason I
point that out. First people know.
Speaker 6 (46:12):
To look at the extreme right, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4 (46:14):
But also just looking at like the liberals just versus
the Republicans, and stuff, right, red versus Blue and stuff like.
Speaker 6 (46:23):
That, the quote unquote more moderate versions.
Speaker 4 (46:25):
Of this stuff, right, and some of those presidential debates
like playing out, like in the aftermath of that, I
remember hearing about, like quote unquote the homeless crisis in
America over and over and over, and it like this
from city to city, state to state, and at the
national level as well. Let's talk to an expert. The
expert's never someone from the streets. It's never someone who
(46:48):
has the lived experience to know just what it is
that they're looking at. You're not looking at data points.
You look at human lives. They're like, That's why I'm
so passionate about this issue, is that it's not data
points for me.
Speaker 6 (47:00):
It's human lives, not just little numbers and stuff.
Speaker 4 (47:02):
You're like, hey, and being able to understand that it
means more like a million being housing insecure at any
given night in America means that's the rolling number going
to the population. So there's far more than a million
people who've been impacted by this. Going back to the
alistatic low and all that other stuff, nobody asks people
who've actually experienced the streets about what's going on with
(47:24):
that so going back to the left, you know, telling
me that I'm sus for wanting to do these things.
Looking back, I'm like, why didn't someone just get me
an ID and help me get a job. I showed
up at a park. I needed an identification card and
I needed the job. Seven years later, I've taken on
so much trauma. I was unable to stop drinking no
matter what, like shaking, twitching, like really severe severe or
(47:49):
severe CPTSD. By that point in time, all those other kids,
a lot of them, they're not even around anymore. If
they went home, they wanted to do whatever they do,
Like I showed up at a park eating some.
Speaker 6 (48:01):
Really basic stuff.
Speaker 4 (48:02):
Instead, I felt like I got used as a poster
child without actually being listened to myself.
Speaker 6 (48:09):
Wat's the same thing happen to other people now. On
the right wing.
Speaker 4 (48:13):
Side of it is accelerationism, Okay. Accelerationism is a fascist
strategy to bring society to the brink of collapse, to
amplify the crime stats, to amplify the poverty and the joblessness,
to amplify you know, insecurity, you can't trust the food,
Will there be food, will there be water?
Speaker 6 (48:34):
Things like that.
Speaker 4 (48:35):
It's to bring society to the total brink of collapse,
so that at that point in time, the populace screams
out for totalitarian authoritarian state, you know, something like Nazi Germany,
something like Mussolini, something like that. Right, And how that
works here is, for years, the United States government, along
(48:57):
with the white supremacist militias, the fascist militias and such, right,
your neo Nazi groups, along with the cartels. They're all friends,
by the way, at least as far as making money goes,
have been importing massive amounts of both fetanyl an cyst
or methamphetamine or the chemicals needed to make and easily
(49:19):
import those things into the United States and Canada for
a prolonged period of time at this point. Additionally, like
at the level of again where the government would come
into place, from city to city to city, the trend
is always towards like demonizing unhoused people and eventually sweeping
(49:40):
things towards a model of forced treatment or of having
a singular state run camp in some sort of unfavorable area,
usually located underneath like an underpass or overpath.
Speaker 1 (49:53):
Or a source plant like in Florida.
Speaker 6 (49:55):
Yeah, you know what I mean. And it's usually something
like that.
Speaker 4 (49:58):
And it's like basically it's using on sheltered people as
a test on unsheltered people, those who experienced mental illness
and those who experienced addiction, has a test run for
a fascists to atalitarian authoritarian state, you know what I mean.
And that's what you have going on on the extreme
right wing. Then you have the people in between. They
just work for the corporations. Come on, now, they just
(50:20):
work for the corporation. So like where does that really
leave the person on the street. And this is why
I talk about the need for like people on the
street to organize with others on the street, regardless of
your politics, regardless of whatever it is that divides you.
Speaker 6 (50:35):
This person uses, this person does it.
Speaker 4 (50:38):
This person believes this, this person does it, you know what, whatever.
Speaker 6 (50:43):
You know what I mean? Are we not all living
on the streets in the same encampment.
Speaker 4 (50:46):
Are we all not just sitting there trying to make
sure that little buddy heater holds out for as long
as he can, you know, Like, is there not a
commonality to be found there?
Speaker 6 (50:55):
Like so, And.
Speaker 4 (50:57):
Something else I see with with either the left or
the right is that someone's always screeching about this is
that issue, right, All those issues again, you'll find them
on the street. They all come to one place to
gather and hang out on the street. Every single last
thing I can think of that's terrible and awful about
the human experience somehow tries to find its way to
(51:18):
the street eventually. I know that's for certain. So if
society wants to know what's going to happen to the
rest of the surrounding world, I don't think you need
to look any further than the street. It's the laboratory
for what they're going to do to humanity, to torture
and suppress people. The people live on the streets, or
the canaries and the coal mines, or the canaries and
(51:40):
the coal mines. When it starts getting too bad, like
that's when you know that things aren't going to be
good for you either. I've been trying to tell people
the air has been really bad for a long time now,
and now it's twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1 (51:50):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (51:51):
I have enjoyed this conversation, and I would like to
extend another invitation to you to come back, because we
can talk a little bit deeper on this. But my
type is about to cut short and I don't want
to cut, have you The zoom shut off abruptly before
I log off? Is there anything else did you like
to share with us in the remaining time we have?
Speaker 6 (52:11):
Yeah, I wouldn't.
Speaker 4 (52:12):
Actually, there's a growing bit of evidence out there the
show that people who are using the substance zone this
is krystalmthmphetamine on the streets also know this up right, yep, yep,
if you're being if that person's being exposed to hyperthermic
meaning hot conditions that leads to increased liver damage that
could be occurring twenty four hours after substance is no
longer being given. So there's really simple things that can
(52:36):
be done to counteract that. A missing fan, a little
teeny tiny fan, helping someone stay cool, a cool environment
helps protect your livers because someday that person might get
sober and you want them to have a good liver.
Speaker 1 (52:48):
Thank you.
Speaker 5 (52:48):
I appreciate that this is THEEO Henderson for Weedi and House.
We have mister Secret here and I thank him for
joining us. I hope we have learned something and hope
we again meet in a light of understanding.
Speaker 6 (53:00):
Well, thank you very much.
Speaker 5 (53:05):
Thank you so much to Secret for his time. You
can learn more about here at the links. In the
description I mentioned at the top of the episode that
we'll be looking to the matter of houselessness and the
relationship that Ice has with this vulnerable population. It has
been said by many that this is not their fight
(53:26):
or it doesn't pertain to them, or people that voted
for this president and are being affected by these policies.
To take a moment to reevaluate very empathy or lack thereof.
We as a people in a society should not revel
in the destruction or harm of other people in the
(53:46):
hopes that we will be spared. Violence is indiscriminate and
cares not if you are deserving or undeserved. Stay tuned
for the next few episodes on the exploration and the
steps that can be taken to protect one's if Ice
comes to call it. If you have a story you'd
like to share, please reach out to me at wedianhousejet
(54:06):
gmail dot com for Weedionhouse on Instagram. Thank you for listening.
May we again me the delight of understanding. Wiedian House
is a production of iHeartRadio. It is written, hosted, and
created by me Theo Henderson. Our producers Jamie Loftus, Hailey Fager,
Katie Fischel, and Lyra Smith.
Speaker 1 (54:28):
Our editor is Adam Want, our.
Speaker 5 (54:31):
Engineer is Joel Jerome, and our local art is also
by Katie Fisher.
Speaker 1 (54:37):
Thank you for listening.
Previously on Weedian House.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
So many young people when they turn eighteen and they've
had the state running their life since childhood, and not
in a great way. So it's often very hard to
get foster youth to participate in extended foster care.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Yes, there are incredible young people who manage to do
it and somehow get to college and somehow have fulfilling,
productive lives, and some of them are in my book
Boards of the State. But overall, fewer than five percent
of kids who age out of foster care will ever
get for your college degree. Fewer than five percent the
(00:43):
fifty nine percent or something are getting locked up.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
This is wrong.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
This is wrong.
Speaker 5 (00:58):
Welcome back to Weedian House. I'm your host, Theo Henderson.
Stay tuned for an update on Los Angeles ICE violent
immigration tactics and the impact it's had on the unhoused community.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
But first, unhoused.
Speaker 5 (01:16):
News, because the news is moving very quickly. We are
recording this on Tuesday, June tenth. Our first story takes
place in Summit, New Jersey. The Summer City Council approved
plans to jail unhoused people unwilling to accept help. They
(01:37):
can face thirty days in jail. And be fined up
to five hundred dollars only if they're unwilling to work
with social service providers. Penalties will also be enforced if
a person refuses to be transport to available indoor housing
or an emergency shelter summit. Mayor Elizabeth Fagin said the
(02:00):
ordinance is another layer and the opportunity for engagement. New
Jersey's houseless population in twenty twenty four was over twelve thousand,
with children making up more from one fifth of the total,
according to Monarch Housing Associates. Our next story involves ICE
(02:22):
ICE Immigration Law Enforcement rabbed and unhoused man from a
San Diego houseless shelter on May thirty, of twenty twenty five.
ICE has taken at least two unhoused undocumented men into custody.
The first one was the resident of a large tent
at sixteenth Street and Newton Avenue in San Diego. The
second one was at a shelter downtown. Two ICE agents
(02:46):
showed up at seven fifty in the morning, listing the
current residence name and a photo of the resident. The
agents will not allow a copy of the warrant and
that's unhoused news. The arc of a moral universe's law,
(03:09):
but it bends towards justice. Doctor King tells us this
leader of the civil rights movement had seen many unjust,
cruel things, yet held out sincere hope and love to
protect himself from drinking from the.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Well of hate.
Speaker 5 (03:27):
This moment in time serves as a compass for what
we are experiencing. We are experiencing grave cruelty at the
hands of the President of the United States Donald Trump.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
Why thousands of National Guard troops and hundreds of marines
to protect federal law enforcement from the attacks of a
vicious and violent mob.
Speaker 5 (03:49):
These past few days, I have seen firsthand the effects
of the White House sanctioned violence on unarmed civilians under
the fiction of law and order.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
The White House has approved violence.
Speaker 5 (04:06):
On his citizenry under the guise of law and order criminality,
and for the most part, our citizenry and mainstream media
has peraded his view and shaped their story to his pronouncements.
The issue of immigration is loaded with tropes of deserving
and undeserving people. Given that we are blaming and shaming society,
(04:27):
this dovetails nicely into our belief system that what is
being done currently is right and deserves praise, but.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
What is being done.
Speaker 5 (04:37):
Families are being targeted, legal immigrants, tourists and unhoused people
are being accosted by playing closed people whisked way without
a trace or way to find out targeted people's whereabouts.
Speaker 6 (04:53):
Is the property of the church.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
This is down a memorial Christian church and we are
not okay on our property.
Speaker 5 (04:59):
Recently, the Western Hotel in downtown LA hosted law enforcement
and nice only to have them targeting the staff to
show if they are legal residents. What's even more audacious
than this is that the president is fine with this,
and it's sending more National Guard to quell the protests
and unrest.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
We didn't have the military in there, the National Guard,
and then we also set in some marines.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
We had some bad people.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
People they look in your face and they spit right
in your face, their animals.
Speaker 5 (05:29):
His aim seems twofold to silence the dissident, and sameir
that just calls by labeling them insurrectionists.
Speaker 6 (05:39):
These are paid insurrectionists or agitators or troublemakers. You can
call it whatever you want. And we ended it and
we have in custody some very bad people.
Speaker 5 (05:50):
Sadly, they are people who are invested in their own
people's oppression, which leads me to another quote by doctor
King that says nothing in the world is more dangerous
and sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
What is also not smart about the.
Speaker 5 (06:07):
Situation is the belief that we will be spared from
the machin nations of this dangerous leader. The unhoused community
is linked in this forced deportation debacle and has received
very little notice or attention. As it were, Ice is
going down to houseless shelters and joining sweeps to hunt
down the undocumented unhoused community members with city leaders tacit agreement, study,
(06:32):
blind indifference, or paralyzed silence. In one way, this will
shrink visible houselessness and make Los Angeles Olympics ready. Many
of the citizenry have a dim view of the young house,
which adds to the harmful stereotypes that on company undocumented unhoused. Thus,
(06:53):
empathy is hard to come by.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
This is why we the in House.
Speaker 5 (06:58):
It's going to spend more time on this is you
in our next episodes. In order to join any cause,
education on the subject is paramount, but a guiding too
to this is empathy. So use your heart to love somebody,
and if your heart is big enough, use it to
love everybody. In the final words of doctor King, we
(07:20):
are tied together in the single garment of destiny. When
we come back, we will hear from Secret, who speaks
to yet another intersection of unhoused identity. Welcome back to
Weedian House. Antho Henderson, our next guest, has unique observations
(07:46):
of his own displacement and struggles here.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Secret story.
Speaker 4 (07:51):
I grew up at war with the US State as
a product of my birth, through no particular fault and
perhaps no particular choice of my own. What that means
in basic language is that I grew up being native
in the US, you know, occupation of what most people
call the United States of America. So that leads to
(08:12):
a certain amount of problems at different things that happen
in life. Plus additionally, you know, my dad's Irish, So
then that leaves that weird in between space where you're like,
you know, you're never going to be considered quote unquote white,
You're never going to be considered by some at least
to be quote unquote one hundred percent natives. So then
(08:33):
you're like, well what am I? Then well, I'm a human.
I mean, that's the easy answer. Anyways. You know, life happens,
Families happen, A lot of problems happen, Capitalism happens. That's
the word I'm sure comes up a lot. So there
was a lot of violence happening around the home. I'm
not here to talk bad about my folks. I love
my parents, but there was a lot of violence happening
(08:55):
around the home, verbal, physical at times, a lot of
things like that. Eventually the vorce happened. I started getting
in trouble with like the court system, by not going
to school because I was depressed and I just stay
up all night. I just didn't go to school. I
had no problem learning, I just didn't like going to school. Eventually,
(09:16):
I started hanging out on the streets a lot, and
I still had a place over my head. I was
like eleven or twelve, and I started just kind of
hanging out all night and just not going home because
I didn't like what was happening at home. Necessarily, it
wasn't a good place. It didn't feel like good vibes.
By that point in time, Dad was angry all the time.
Mom was drinking a lot. Again, I'm not here to
(09:37):
talk bad about him. I've been angry at times, I've
drank a lot. Who am I to like place Dougia made.
I'm just talking about what happened and the consequences of
what happened. So, like, you know, by this point of time,
I'm out hanging out and just trying to avoid everything.
Life keeps moving along twelve thirteen. By fifteen, I'd gotten
(10:00):
sick of bouncing back and forth for mom and dad
so much. Somehow it seemed like the right thing for
me to do to get my own place at fifteen
years old. So I had like this room for ret
that I had from a punk rock band that lasted.
Speaker 6 (10:15):
For a while.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
You know, where's a fifteen year old living in a
punk rock house going to end up in the end
on the streets. So by that point in time, I'd
started engaging in certain things.
Speaker 6 (10:30):
I was a drug dealer.
Speaker 4 (10:32):
I sold weed, you know, so I was paying my
way through stuff off a weed, helping other people and
stuff off a weed at that point in time or
whatever as well too, because kind of the people who
taught me how to how to sell basically were also
from the streets, and they also help people out because
they were like, well, I mean that kid needs a sandwich.
(10:53):
You know, these days people use words like mutual aid.
For me, the first mutual aid people and I saw
were wheat dealers, honestly though, you know, and a couple
of pump rock folks, hippie cats and stuff like that. Anyways,
life just kept drifting on. I hit some ups in life.
I wasn't always on the streets all these years. I mean,
you see the grays. I had some success in corporate life, sales, marketing,
(11:19):
managerial offices. I've worked for nonprofits. I've done construction work,
labor work like outdoor tree care, all different kinds of
whatever it is you can imagine. I probably made it.
I've made soap lotions. I just kept ending up on
the streets. I just could never get enough stability to
(11:40):
get myself quite right. Like I had the ability to
get somewhere, but I never had the stability to stay somewhere,
if that makes any sense.
Speaker 6 (11:50):
You know. It's like people look at someone like me,
How could I end up on the streets.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
I'm smart, I'm intelligent, right, Well, that's kind of how
that sort of thing happened. And I never felt emotionally
safe for a long enough period of time of my
life where like the fruits of that emotional stability never
had a chance to write.
Speaker 6 (12:11):
But I never got to enjoy that. So, you know,
one thing led to another.
Speaker 4 (12:16):
On the streets, off the streets, on the streets, off
the streets, I don't know the amount of times crashing
on couches, crashing on benches.
Speaker 6 (12:25):
There was a place we used to call the heaters,
and we were kids.
Speaker 4 (12:27):
It was this building like by the U of M campus,
and it spat out like this kind of heat all night,
but it was a wet heat, so it would keep
you kind of warm, but then it would keep be
kind of wet, cold, kind of wet. So you just
sit there sort of miserable all night, like just by
this heater, sort of trying to have sleep for like
fifteen minutes at a stretch. And eventually my folks died.
(12:51):
And after that there was a really bad period of time.
I was using a lot the substance sat many nos.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Up What is up? That's that ecstasy is it?
Speaker 4 (13:02):
Or PCB no, although in my younger days I did
use you know, like xc mdm A or whatever.
Speaker 6 (13:11):
Up.
Speaker 4 (13:11):
Up is what the kids on the streets call trystal
meth in feat of me. Now, okay, okay, at least
out in this in these in the speck of the
woods or whatever, or branch or the city.
Speaker 6 (13:20):
If you will, or bathroom. Yeah okay, yeah yeah. So
it's it's crystal math.
Speaker 4 (13:26):
It's just uh, it's just that the people call it up,
so like they called they called crystal meth up, and
then they call opiate's down.
Speaker 6 (13:34):
So if it's.
Speaker 4 (13:34):
Heroine or if it's FETANHLS and that's down, you're on
that down. You're on that up. Means you're doing like meth,
you're on that up. Okay, yup. Anyways, I eventually got
stick to doing math there for that. After my folks died,
I went up to Portland looking for some hugs and hugs.
I don't know what I was thinking there. I didn't
(13:55):
do my research. I didn't find that. I found a
whole lot of trouble. Well, I found open air shooting
galleries and people really not looking like they're having the
greatest time in life, and like probably more human misery
than I think I've ever seen up until that point.
Speaker 6 (14:13):
Ever.
Speaker 4 (14:14):
And the first thing I thought to myself was like,
this is going to hit like the Midwest pretty fast,
like given a couple of years. I didn't think it
would be like a year later or even several months later.
So several months later, the events of George Floyd happened,
you know, the murder of George Floyd happened, city rose up.
(14:34):
A lot of different things occurred out of that. A
lot of different things occurred out of that. One of
the things that happened was the Sheridan Hotel, which had
been common Deer or some sort of arrangement had been
struck by volunteers to open it as a free hotel.
This is during a time of COVID lockdown and lockdown
(14:55):
because of riots and all these other different things happening, right,
So that goes on. And then I had been back
in Portland briefly for a period of time during all
of this, where again things sorch is still not well.
And I got back here and my friend was telling
me about what was happening at Powderhorn East and Powderhorn West,
(15:17):
so I went and checked it out. And like you know,
Powderhorn East Powderhorn West Park, it's like this gigantic multi
block complex or just a park, not complex, but just
a large park in the south side of Minneapolis, and
pretty much the entirety of it had been turned into
an encampment.
Speaker 6 (15:38):
Oh so, I mean estimates very on how many people
were there.
Speaker 4 (15:43):
It's my estimate that they're at least five hundred and
two one thousand plus people there at the peak of it,
Like five hundred and two one thousand plus people just
show them in the park in Minneapolis. And then this
sort of movement, this mutual aid thing, whatever you want
to call it, popped up out of that, which has
proven to be a good thing and also came with
(16:06):
some baggage that was unexpected as well. All of this
has really profoundly changed my life, particularly the last time around,
because before it was always a unique journey. It was
me and a couple of friends, a couple of plucky kids.
We would look out for each other, like there are
people trying to pray on us, like you know, predators
(16:27):
when we were kids, and like we would stand up
to them, like get the hell out of here. Can
I say that? Yeah, but you know, get the heck
get out of here or whatever, like leave our friends alone,
like you know what I mean, Like just no, you
can't come around here, like go I was used to
a lot of stuff like that. I'd never seen like
the scale of suffering that I saw. So when I
(16:50):
hit Powderhorn, I put up a tent there, and then
a couple of days later, people are going to speak
at the park and wreck to discuss, you know, whether
or not we would be allowed to stay there under
a sanctuary status at that point in time.
Speaker 6 (17:05):
And someone was like, I hear.
Speaker 4 (17:07):
You around here and you're helping out and you speak
real good, like you should come speak with us, come
with us, And I was just like, I don't know
about this, but I did it. So I became like
a public speaker for a while. And I have really
mixed feelings about that, especially considering that my own circumstances
(17:28):
improved hardly, not at all throughout any of that. I
kind of feel like a lot of people had their
resume off of the life and work of people like
me and many many others actually, but that's subject for later.
I just saw so much this time around, and it
got worse than it had ever been for me. I
lost a lot of friends within a couple of years
(17:48):
period of time.
Speaker 5 (17:49):
Was this student to COVID or was this happening life
circumstances or.
Speaker 4 (17:53):
This is life circumstances and stuff like that. In some
cases this is like directly result of the streets, and
others it's a result of what I am going to
refer to later, which known as alistatic load. Alistatic load
is the lifetime accumulation of stress in a human being,
as measured by cortisol levels. So you hear that stress
(18:14):
and fear kill, okay, So this measures your lifetime accumulation
of those things. And if you have a high alistatic load,
there is a correlation between pretty bad health outcomes, one
of the most famous being a case study of a
black woman who was from a quote unquote lower socioeconomic
(18:36):
background who pulled themselves up quote unquote by their bootstraps.
I think they got a full ride the Harvard Yale,
became a CEO of a fortune five hundred company, had
a healthy life, ate well, moderate drinking, nothing crazy, nothing bad,
just good living right, and died in extremely early death.
(18:57):
And they died in extremely early death. It's theorized because
of their life early on in life, because of the
things that they had internalized, the traumas and the things
that it surrounded them as a result of their upbringing
their backgrounds the things that they had seen that that
had permanently shortened their human life span. So I believe
(19:19):
in some cases it's due to that, the permanent shortening
of a human lifespan from trauma, stress, the streets, addictions,
mental illnesses, physical illnesses, and I I just saw so
much this last time, and then finally for me, it
ended with the whole using part of it. I mean,
at least as far as using like alcohol or hard substances.
(19:42):
Kelly Sober. Last year, I woke up in a hospital
coming out of a coma.
Speaker 6 (19:48):
I thought it was nineteen ninety five for a little bit.
Speaker 4 (19:51):
Not the coolest feeling and stuff, And it really just
has me asking a lot of questions of how did
I come to be here and how did that even
come to be a part of speaking on behalf of
homeless people, and yet still find myself in that hospital bed.
Speaker 5 (20:05):
Did you come up with any answers or did you
are you still searching?
Speaker 4 (20:08):
I've come up with some answers. I've come up with
some answers. A lot of people tend not to like
the answers I come up with. Some people kind of
know anyways, I mean, my story is just there's there's
just so much weird stuff going on in my life story.
I mean, like the day before I quit drinking last year,
I de escalated the gun situation. You know, someone was like,
(20:30):
I'll pop you right here, right now, and I was
just like, no, you won't. They're like what, and I
was like, no, you won't. And I was just like,
look like, I'm not afraid to die today. I have
nothing left to lose. You have stuff left to lose,
and I don't want you to lose those things.
Speaker 6 (20:45):
Actually, Like if you.
Speaker 4 (20:46):
Pull that trigger, it's going to cause a lot of
problems for you. I don't have anything left to lose,
So like, no, you're not going to pull that trigger.
Speaker 6 (20:53):
Like I'm not afraid of you.
Speaker 4 (20:54):
And that's just not within most people's normal frame of
of life or whatever. And I used to think that
my job was to maybe be like out there doing
that sort of thing all the time, de escalating situations,
boots on the ground front lyne on the streets. But
the more I think about it, the more I think
seeing bigger pictures is kind of my niche or whatever,
(21:19):
and kind of what I want to talk about a
lot more I guess you know.
Speaker 5 (21:23):
Interesting, So you recently just mentioned that you just you
came out of a coma.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
What year ago? Right?
Speaker 5 (21:29):
What got you started back on to drinking?
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Right?
Speaker 5 (21:33):
Were you drinking? Were drinking or with the accident. I
don't want to zoom because there's a lot of reasons.
Speaker 4 (21:39):
Well, I mean, okay, so for the reason I went
into coma was shortly after I had actually stopped drinking.
So what happens in my case or whatever is decompensated cirrhosis.
Your liver starts to feel really bad, and there's a
part of the liver that's kind of like a dead zone.
Speaker 6 (21:58):
It's trying to push material through that dead zone.
Speaker 4 (22:00):
It doesn't work, so your body traits these little veins
that aren't supposed to be there. Over time, those can
get really inflamed, they can burst, leading the sudden death.
Speaker 6 (22:11):
I'll skip the gross parts or whatever.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
But so I got brought to the hospital with the
hemoglobe and a five point five and then was in
a coma for about a week and a half, two
weeks something like that, and then at a hospital for
another couple of weeks after that, crashed again, had emergency surgery,
and now I'm kind of alive somehow, somehow.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
I'm glad to hear that you made it or recover
it through it.
Speaker 5 (22:38):
What are the things that when you had this I
almost say epiphany is medical emergency. Did you walk away
with new insight on things? Or was it a rehash
of the old?
Speaker 4 (22:50):
I felt like I've been playing games with my life
for a long time, and like i'd known who I
was to be. What I am had been crystallizing for
some time, and I felt that I almost blew my
chance to do some of the most important things that
I could do with all this time here. And I
(23:12):
suffered a long, long, long way to get to where
I'm at today. So to blow all that suffering for
nothing seems like a tremendous waste. I mean like, I
look at suffering almost like a superpower. So I kind
of good at it, right, Like, oh, some suffering like
feed me. I mean not really, it really is very traumatizing, actually,
(23:33):
you know what I mean. But I just had a
renewed sense of I'm put here to do something more
than just my own life than to just consume resources
and say hi and be friendly to people until I'm.
Speaker 6 (23:47):
Not here anymore.
Speaker 4 (23:48):
And that there's a lot of people that need help,
and that even if I don't care about my own self,
surely I can find the caring in my heart for others.
So I kind of had a renewed feeling of wanting
to get back to work on that sort of thing.
Speaker 5 (24:02):
And what type of work that you are doing now
to make good on the promise that you a knew
epiphany that you have.
Speaker 4 (24:10):
Well, one thing that people have always told me that
I've always resented hearing was that you need to put
on your own oxygen mask first. I've always been running
on pure trauma off of nothing.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
You know.
Speaker 4 (24:24):
People would ask me what I want for breakfast or
coffee and a cigarette, you know. And I'm trying to
self care, which is something I've never been very good at,
trying to self care and just take care of doing
the everyday things I need to do to make my
one year of sobriety, to get my health going, to
(24:47):
to keep that forward progress going. I'm about to make
changes to my diet for another level of you know,
a lot of people here cirrhosis and you think that
you're for sure going to die in like six months
or something.
Speaker 6 (24:58):
That's not always the case. Even if you have a
very severe pharmacerhroosis, it's not always the case. It's possible
to live a very long time. There's no guarantees, but
it's possible. And if you told me that I would
be good enough to walk around or go for a
short bike ride like six months ago, I'd have been like,
no way. But I can do that now.
Speaker 4 (25:18):
So I'm focusing on that, and I'm focusing on trying
to get my own economic.
Speaker 6 (25:23):
House in order.
Speaker 4 (25:25):
I hate being about money, but while we have to
live underneath that system of money and governance and these things,
it makes a lot more sense for someone like me
to just go out and figure out a way to
punch a clock, get that check, get that cheddar, do
what you gotta do, player, you know what I mean.
Speaker 6 (25:41):
Then it does show me to.
Speaker 4 (25:44):
Ask for twenty dollars, cyber bag in on Venmo and
this and that endlessly forever. Not that there's anything wrong
with those things. I've lived off those things that many
times in my life. They were absolutely essential for my survival.
But I'm trying to also transition my life in the
being a more stable person. And if I'm a more
stable person, I feel that since I'm used to living
(26:05):
off of nothing, if I was making you know, one
one hundred and twenty plus again like I used to
once on a time, a long time ago, while still
living off of basically nothing, that's a lot of money
that could be used to help people to start out
my other initiatives like basically trading ways for communities to
grow our own food largely free of corporate or government
(26:26):
dependence of any kind.
Speaker 6 (26:28):
Again, more about that later.
Speaker 5 (26:30):
Okay, I'm going to take a quick step back. It
seems to me if from hearing your story and just
hearing it told in this way, it seems that your beginnings,
your origin story, began with trauma. We're dealing with challenging
things that you didn't act. For one, dealing with the
(26:50):
ambiguity of who you are. But also your parents were
dealing with trauma. It sounds like they were, because I
don't believe that they just did all these things because
it was just fun to do. I believe that they
were dealing with traumas and dealing with the history of
the world that we live in, dealing with a native,
a mother or an indigenous and as well as the
(27:13):
challenges that she probably went through and add to that
where your father was an Irish person who also dealt
with his own form of discrimination and trying to navigate
a world dealing with that, dealing with capitalism. I'm sure
that they did the things that they tried to cope
with these deliterious type of situations in the way that
(27:35):
they do. How because there is no book on how
to do something healthy when you're in an unhealthy environment
such as that, and unfortunately you seem to had to
be absorbed into that as a child and not being
able to even just to thinking it back to my
own childhood, thinking about telling my siblings like we were
(27:55):
a child trying to make sense of adult situations that
we couldn't do, and there was nothing we can do.
We can't blame ourselves over it, of course, and we
can also look with more of an understanding or empathetic eye,
with understanding that they didn't have were adults, they didn't
have the answers, so hind the world were going to
have the answers if they didn't have the answers, So,
(28:16):
you know, to absolve ourselves in a way or acquit
ourselves instead of beating ourselves up.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Am I off track?
Speaker 5 (28:24):
Or off base with this, or if I am pleased,
don't hesitate to correct me if I'm wrong into this.
Speaker 4 (28:31):
No, I would definitely agree with a lot of what
you're saying, And for that matter, that would be why
I identify with anti imperialist sentiments, anti settler colonialist sentiments,
and anti capitalism and international system of finance that praise
on the entirety of the human race and all life
(28:54):
on this planet for that matter. So like, where did
my trauma really come from? I could look at my
parent and so look at their actions, but what caused
their actions and what caused the actions that led to that,
and so on and so forth, and it really comes
back to like this poisonoustry, it's capitalism, it's patriarchy, it's
things of that nature.
Speaker 5 (29:14):
Well, how did you get to this such a more
enriched or enlightened position, because I'm like, because these those
terms are those kind of observations take some time or
it's some I want to say, damask and experience, but
there takes some reflection onto that. How did you know,
during navigating your life as it were, to come to
these conclusions?
Speaker 4 (29:35):
Well, Lokei says, on a specific track, I've known the
truth since I was a small little boy, I'm a
product of the system. I was born to destroy, And
I referenced being at war with the state just to
the product of being born, you know, particularly fault of
my own. The first time i'd have gone pulled out
on me by a police officer, I was like maybe
nine or ten or.
Speaker 6 (29:55):
Something like that.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Yeah. Wow.
Speaker 4 (29:56):
They were doing a warrant suite for one of my
my mom's husbands who had a drinking in the park
ticket that they felt that they needed to knock on
the door and sweep to the apartment with like nine
to ten police officers pointing guns at little kids, and
you know, our moms are livid and screaming and yelling
(30:17):
at them, and this, that and the other. So those
would be that would be a point in time at
which I started realized that things aren't quite right in
the world. Another point in time would have been let's
see Political Science one oh one. Before we open the book,
the instructor began speaking with us about othering quote unquote
othering and it being the basis of almost all conflict
(30:39):
between human beings.
Speaker 6 (30:41):
Othering.
Speaker 4 (30:42):
Before we even open the textbook or anything, I would
identify that as being a point, the fact that I
looked like capitalism and how one might do something about
it from learning about it. I've worked in business sales marketing.
I know how the devil's tricks works, you know, I
(31:02):
know how the devil pulls the wall over your eyes.
Not necessarily your eyes, but you know, metaphorically exact right right,
So that would be another thing. And then large chunks
of this I'd always kind of just felt or known
deep down inside. I've been watching fascism creep worldwide and
domestically for well over a decade. I've been watching like
(31:27):
the advent of leftism on the internet has told the
walls the corporate or the corporate walls, and the memes
and stuff, but really it was it's just the events
of the past several years, and being on the streets
since my folks died, I've seen so much suffering. How
can I not understand that there is absolutely no chance
(31:48):
that a government or the state is capable of saving me.
When I'm looking around and I see a thousand people
in a park that I used to play in as
a little kid, and I'm not blaming any single one
of us for being in that park, I'm blaming the
system that made that happen, that put us in that park,
you know what I mean. And then who's helping out?
Is it the state that caused the problem to begin with? No,
(32:09):
it's not the state that causes it's not the state
helping out at all. If anything, they've done nothing but
work against while taking photo op eds and you know,
like the different newspapers that are favorable to them, etc.
And it's the people largely. It's largely large groups of
community organizing and groups of community. Some are over some
(32:34):
not just going out and helping out. It's rolling up
my sleeve, skating the work, doing propane drops, helping people
get their tents up when it's negative thirty negative forty
windshill and it's collapsed, and they're just shown out there
with the girl or something and a partially collapse tent
and no heater on in there, and you're like, oh me,
(32:54):
you're gonna die if we don't get you a tent
up and gets you like a heater going out of there. No,
like this is so bad, you know, And then just
watching and continuing for winter after winter at this point
really will do a lot, but large chunks of this
happened during the events of George Floyd. I was watching
(33:14):
part of their drones fly over a city. I watched
people riot in multiple cities. I saw black heck helicopters
at ultra you know, Ultra low.
Speaker 6 (33:28):
And I started.
Speaker 4 (33:30):
Educating myself on a broken cell phone in a tent
while still drinking, just sitting there with my bottle, looking
at a tent. At first, all I had was subdot media,
which is an anarchist media collective based out of Canada.
It's the work of European anarchists and the work of
indigenous collectives up there. And then just kept studying and
(33:52):
reading and then trying to look at things from different
perspectives and then applying things to the to now, to
reality instead of just what happened one hundred years ago.
What did someone think a hundred years ago? Well, what
did Karl Marx know about like living in the hood?
What did Karl Marx know about trapping?
Speaker 6 (34:10):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 4 (34:11):
Like what a Cala Marks know about living in a
tent with like a thousand people and like there's a
cell phone charging station over there and they're selling meth
all night, Like what does car Marx know about that.
I mean, I think the cat had some interesting ideas,
but I also think it's important that we form ideas
here and now that make up the reality around us
(34:32):
here and now and our friends and family and so
on and so forth. So that's where a lot of
that happened for me.
Speaker 5 (34:39):
We'll be back with more from Secret after this break.
Welcome back to see is Theo Henderson with Weedyan House.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
Here's the rest of my interview with Secret.
Speaker 5 (34:55):
I don't want to sidetrack and get off your story,
but I come from a very but religious background and
it was basically a cult, and I broke free from it.
But the thing of it is that the insight that
I learned from breaking free from the cult, I see
some of the tracings of it in the left of spaces,
(35:16):
and it's very delicate to tell them how dangerous and
how easy you can fall into becoming a fanatic, or
how it created a hyper vigilance for me. And then
I noticed sometimes trying to remind them, like, you know,
we live into here now right now. Though these people
that have raped these writings was illustrious and probably timely
(35:37):
in their time, there's a lot of things that have evolved,
it didn't just stop, you know, Like you know, we
have the fanatics that believe the.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
Bible was written by God and that was it.
Speaker 5 (35:46):
It's word for word, and you know, discounting all the
other people, the hatred, the prejudices that they poured into
the book, and the limited scope a foresight of what
was going on. And I say the same when I
see or hear people make stock quotes in spaces like that,
and I have to say, well, let's not always use that.
(36:10):
Let's make sure we're a little bit more malleable to
the times and be able to apply it. Because one
of the things I do notice, and I'll give you
just one example to be even clearer. I remember a
few years ago I was talking to some of the
leaders about some of the statements that they were saying,
and because I come from that quote, but it just
(36:31):
set off to all types of alarms, like you don't
understand what you're saying and how dangerous this is and
how you can be set onto another path. And when
I will say things like you know, here's one, well,
we need everybody, and I had to say, you absolutely
don't need everybody, because our history of any type of
(36:52):
revolutionary is always a small group of committed people have
made effective change and if you wanted to get the
coop by y'all moment, it's just not going to happen.
But also to there people that are toxic, we don't
need toxicity in order because that then this defeats the purpose.
If we're trying to minimize harm and toxicity, we don't
(37:13):
want to have the person that's being toxic and transigent
and trying to derail the movement. And then well that's
not what we say. I'm like, well, when we say
that you don't bring the caveato, you don't bring I
want to stand an enlightened perspective, you don't bring perspectives.
That's just just a cookie cutter response. But it also
(37:33):
could be very dangerous and how we frame it, especially
when we're dealing with necessarily conflict, Like I say, because
I come from that background, I saw how toxic it was,
and some things in how the isolation and the constant
stock of phrases, the regurgitation of stock phrases when you're
(37:55):
making you know, like for example, like you they have
got ill, and we can use biblical statements saying you know,
you're really not ill medically, you have a demon in you,
and you need to pray about it. You need to
you know, go, you know, you need to quit cold turkey.
We need to put lay hands on you and you
even if you had a medical emergency, we would not
(38:17):
have rushed you to the hospital. We would have had
to you know, had spent all night singing, chanting, and
if you got into a coma, you know, it's just
God's will. So I seen extreme examples of that. I've
seen how were people that were suffering from depression or
suffering from pseudo sidal ideation, how they would discounted and
(38:37):
then they were made to feel bad. You know, there's
got to be a balance between sometimes of the moment
of reality and then to this austere belief system that's
totally unrealistic.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
That's what I come with.
Speaker 5 (38:52):
And when the movements and see and I see, I
can see how this could be led into some dangerous wards.
That's all all I'm saying.
Speaker 4 (39:00):
Yeah, I mean, well, I could talk about a couple
of hours on the whole.
Speaker 6 (39:04):
Lot of what we just talked there.
Speaker 4 (39:08):
Yeah, yeah, I would very much have the time to
do that, actually, because I have my own experiences with
the pseudo cult type thing. Although it wasn't overtly religious,
it qualifies or whatever. Yeah, you know, left right spaces
all this stuff.
Speaker 6 (39:25):
Obviously, I have my leftist.
Speaker 4 (39:27):
Views personally me personally, I myself do now when you're
talking about the wider world of the streets and people
who live life as an unsheltered individual, and I mean, like,
I kind of look at that term sometimes, like was
that someone from the streets that came up with that term?
Does someone just wake up out of their tent one day,
(39:49):
take a slug off that E and J and say,
you know what, I'm a chronically unsheltered individual from the streets,
My guy, I don't think that's the case. I just don't.
Although it certainly possible, I just don't. But I like
to frame things in terms of just the streets and
in terms of intersectionality, specifically actually in terms of the streets,
(40:13):
because I can't think of a single type of oppression
where you won't find an intersectionality at the level of
the streets.
Speaker 6 (40:20):
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4 (40:21):
Are you talking about women's rights, women's bodily autonomy and
stuff like that. These are issues happening at the level
of the streets. Bodily autonomy is also happening at the
level of the streets as far as whether or not
a system deems someone to take care of themselves or
other human beings.
Speaker 6 (40:38):
Who are they? Who's the system? Who really is anyone
to decide these things. There's a whole lot of questions there.
And then when you look at the streets, you see
people coming in from the left and they're pushing their
leftist views that are there's personally into worlds that may
not align with that world of a housed leftist. In
(40:59):
my experience, I'm frequently invalidated. Has a drunk ass from
a tent. They won't say that, you know, they're not
going to say that, not to me, of course, of course, of.
Speaker 4 (41:10):
Course, but I'm invalidated, has a drunk, mentally unwell person,
heavily traumatized from a tent. All of these things are true,
by the way, but they'll invalidate me with that at
the same time they want to hold me accountable. Has
a comrade has housed comrade as someone who lives in
the world that they live in, the shares and the values,
(41:32):
the more's the ways of communication that they have chosen
for themselves socially has a group. And that just doesn't
line up for me, because, like, okay, I see accusations
getting tossed around.
Speaker 6 (41:48):
People's screaming you know whose streets are streets? You know
what I mean?
Speaker 4 (41:51):
Like, no justice, no streets? Right, no justice, no streets?
Where's our own internal justice? I don't really see it.
So you have these wild accusations darting around about this
person or that person. The accusations changed from year to year.
There's never really any proof, never any sort of process
(42:11):
or anything like that. Now, I don't know what it's
like in the world of the housed white leftists and
all that. Okay, like where I come from, if you
act like that, you get checked. I'm sorry you said,
what about who back it up? What you're talking about?
Speaker 6 (42:25):
Then?
Speaker 4 (42:27):
Yet that's not the way it works. So then people
get upset because their names getting smeared through the mud,
typically because there's usually standing up to the power structure also,
and I just I see a lot of problems with that.
I see problems with housed people imposing what makes them
(42:49):
comfortable inside of their world, in their mind and their heart,
their their places in the spaces that are not theirs
where these things may not work, where they talk about
things like tru and stuff, and I'm like, I've worked
with people I don't trust out at camps. I've worked
with people I hate their guts, I don't like them.
Let's use them a better word, I don't like them.
(43:12):
We have to work together. If there's no one else
out here, we got to do it, you know. And
I just feel like a lot of people at times
people don't understand that, or at times people try to
talk me out of ideas I had, like pr marketing.
I wanted to actually get an email list, hook up
with the five OZHO one C three, and get an
(43:34):
actual call center going. So instead of putting out like
these you know, venmo s and such on social media.
I mean, keep doing that too, but to actually have
like a membership list, and as well as to be
able to help shape narratives at the grassroots level to
counter what's being happening, you know, from the media and
all this other stuff, right, because the media always will
(43:54):
bring up the trauma, the crime, the violence, So to
counter this other stuf, like, well, hey, we worked on
this project and we got a bunch of people together
and put together some meat artwork. Hope you liked it.
Hope it made it look a little less scary for
you when you're walking by with your children. That kind
of the thing. People told me that that that was
sus that was capitalistic, and I like, at the time,
(44:18):
I was drinking and my thinking was a little fledgling
still perhaps, so I kind of didn't know what to
say to that, but it didn't seem right.
Speaker 1 (44:25):
But it's bizarre.
Speaker 5 (44:26):
I'm sorry, but it's bizarre because you know, even in
our spaces now too, that there's still this effort of
doing some outreach for like, for example, reaching across the
aisle to the Nimbi. So the most virulent of people
that despise on house people trying to get them to
understand what they're saying is wrong or painful and harmful.
(44:48):
So I mean, that's just amazing that they would say
that because they can make the same argument for this
that statement, because there are movements that are literally doing that.
Speaker 4 (44:58):
So yeah, I just feel like they were really everyone
was really fired up from the events of George Floyd, Okay,
and everyone was real fired up on f twelve and this,
that and the other, and just like smash it all.
Speaker 6 (45:11):
And I'm just like, you know, that's great.
Speaker 4 (45:13):
And all, But Johnny or Susie over here, they got
to like try to come up with some money. They're
trying to get their kids back from shop protective services
or whatever, you know what I mean, Like we need
to get them like a stable job and a stable crib,
like whatever gets them that the quickest.
Speaker 6 (45:30):
Do that.
Speaker 4 (45:31):
Okay, if you want to fight your ideological wars, do
it in your neighborhoods, with your funds, with your own peoples.
Don't use homeless people his ponds in your ideological wars
versus the right, the government, or the international capitalist system. Basically,
though I'm myself align with those things, you know what
I mean, Like I myself am against like capitalism. I
(45:54):
just take kind of offense because at points in time
it feels like folks on the street are being used
as ponds by folks from.
Speaker 6 (46:02):
The extreme left.
Speaker 4 (46:03):
And I only point that out because most people wouldn't
think to look there. Okay, that's the only reason I
point that out. First people know.
Speaker 6 (46:12):
To look at the extreme right, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4 (46:14):
But also just looking at like the liberals just versus
the Republicans, and stuff, right, red versus Blue and stuff like.
Speaker 6 (46:23):
That, the quote unquote more moderate versions.
Speaker 4 (46:25):
Of this stuff, right, and some of those presidential debates
like playing out, like in the aftermath of that, I
remember hearing about, like quote unquote the homeless crisis in
America over and over and over, and it like this
from city to city, state to state, and at the
national level as well. Let's talk to an expert. The
expert's never someone from the streets. It's never someone who
(46:48):
has the lived experience to know just what it is
that they're looking at. You're not looking at data points.
You look at human lives. They're like, That's why I'm
so passionate about this issue, is that it's not data
points for me.
Speaker 6 (47:00):
It's human lives, not just little numbers and stuff.
Speaker 4 (47:02):
You're like, hey, and being able to understand that it
means more like a million being housing insecure at any
given night in America means that's the rolling number going
to the population. So there's far more than a million
people who've been impacted by this. Going back to the
alistatic low and all that other stuff, nobody asks people
who've actually experienced the streets about what's going on with
(47:24):
that so going back to the left, you know, telling
me that I'm sus for wanting to do these things.
Looking back, I'm like, why didn't someone just get me
an ID and help me get a job. I showed
up at a park. I needed an identification card and
I needed the job. Seven years later, I've taken on
so much trauma. I was unable to stop drinking no
matter what, like shaking, twitching, like really severe severe or
(47:49):
severe CPTSD. By that point in time, all those other kids,
a lot of them, they're not even around anymore. If
they went home, they wanted to do whatever they do,
Like I showed up at a park eating some.
Speaker 6 (48:01):
Really basic stuff.
Speaker 4 (48:02):
Instead, I felt like I got used as a poster
child without actually being listened to myself.
Speaker 6 (48:09):
Wat's the same thing happen to other people now. On
the right wing.
Speaker 4 (48:13):
Side of it is accelerationism, Okay. Accelerationism is a fascist
strategy to bring society to the brink of collapse, to
amplify the crime stats, to amplify the poverty and the joblessness,
to amplify you know, insecurity, you can't trust the food,
Will there be food, will there be water?
Speaker 6 (48:34):
Things like that.
Speaker 4 (48:35):
It's to bring society to the total brink of collapse,
so that at that point in time, the populace screams
out for totalitarian authoritarian state, you know, something like Nazi Germany,
something like Mussolini, something like that. Right, And how that
works here is, for years, the United States government, along
(48:57):
with the white supremacist militias, the fascist militias and such, right,
your neo Nazi groups, along with the cartels. They're all friends,
by the way, at least as far as making money goes,
have been importing massive amounts of both fetanyl an cyst
or methamphetamine or the chemicals needed to make and easily
(49:19):
import those things into the United States and Canada for
a prolonged period of time at this point. Additionally, like
at the level of again where the government would come
into place, from city to city to city, the trend
is always towards like demonizing unhoused people and eventually sweeping
(49:40):
things towards a model of forced treatment or of having
a singular state run camp in some sort of unfavorable area,
usually located underneath like an underpass or overpath.
Speaker 1 (49:53):
Or a source plant like in Florida.
Speaker 6 (49:55):
Yeah, you know what I mean. And it's usually something
like that.
Speaker 4 (49:58):
And it's like basically it's using on sheltered people as
a test on unsheltered people, those who experienced mental illness
and those who experienced addiction, has a test run for
a fascists to atalitarian authoritarian state, you know what I mean.
And that's what you have going on on the extreme
right wing. Then you have the people in between. They
just work for the corporations. Come on, now, they just
(50:20):
work for the corporation. So like where does that really
leave the person on the street. And this is why
I talk about the need for like people on the
street to organize with others on the street, regardless of
your politics, regardless of whatever it is that divides you.
Speaker 6 (50:35):
This person uses, this person does it.
Speaker 4 (50:38):
This person believes this, this person does it, you know what, whatever.
Speaker 6 (50:43):
You know what I mean? Are we not all living
on the streets in the same encampment.
Speaker 4 (50:46):
Are we all not just sitting there trying to make
sure that little buddy heater holds out for as long
as he can, you know, Like, is there not a
commonality to be found there?
Speaker 6 (50:55):
Like so, And.
Speaker 4 (50:57):
Something else I see with with either the left or
the right is that someone's always screeching about this is
that issue, right, All those issues again, you'll find them
on the street. They all come to one place to
gather and hang out on the street. Every single last
thing I can think of that's terrible and awful about
the human experience somehow tries to find its way to
(51:18):
the street eventually. I know that's for certain. So if
society wants to know what's going to happen to the
rest of the surrounding world, I don't think you need
to look any further than the street. It's the laboratory
for what they're going to do to humanity, to torture
and suppress people. The people live on the streets, or
the canaries and the coal mines, or the canaries and
(51:40):
the coal mines. When it starts getting too bad, like
that's when you know that things aren't going to be
good for you either. I've been trying to tell people
the air has been really bad for a long time now,
and now it's twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1 (51:50):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (51:51):
I have enjoyed this conversation, and I would like to
extend another invitation to you to come back, because we
can talk a little bit deeper on this. But my
type is about to cut short and I don't want
to cut, have you The zoom shut off abruptly before
I log off? Is there anything else did you like
to share with us in the remaining time we have?
Speaker 6 (52:11):
Yeah, I wouldn't.
Speaker 4 (52:12):
Actually, there's a growing bit of evidence out there the
show that people who are using the substance zone this
is krystalmthmphetamine on the streets also know this up right, yep, yep,
if you're being if that person's being exposed to hyperthermic
meaning hot conditions that leads to increased liver damage that
could be occurring twenty four hours after substance is no
longer being given. So there's really simple things that can
(52:36):
be done to counteract that. A missing fan, a little
teeny tiny fan, helping someone stay cool, a cool environment
helps protect your livers because someday that person might get
sober and you want them to have a good liver.
Speaker 1 (52:48):
Thank you.
Speaker 5 (52:48):
I appreciate that this is THEEO Henderson for Weedi and House.
We have mister Secret here and I thank him for
joining us. I hope we have learned something and hope
we again meet in a light of understanding.
Speaker 6 (53:00):
Well, thank you very much.
Speaker 5 (53:05):
Thank you so much to Secret for his time. You
can learn more about here at the links. In the
description I mentioned at the top of the episode that
we'll be looking to the matter of houselessness and the
relationship that Ice has with this vulnerable population. It has
been said by many that this is not their fight
(53:26):
or it doesn't pertain to them, or people that voted
for this president and are being affected by these policies.
To take a moment to reevaluate very empathy or lack thereof.
We as a people in a society should not revel
in the destruction or harm of other people in the
(53:46):
hopes that we will be spared. Violence is indiscriminate and
cares not if you are deserving or undeserved. Stay tuned
for the next few episodes on the exploration and the
steps that can be taken to protect one's if Ice
comes to call it. If you have a story you'd
like to share, please reach out to me at wedianhousejet
(54:06):
gmail dot com for Weedionhouse on Instagram. Thank you for listening.
May we again me the delight of understanding. Wiedian House
is a production of iHeartRadio. It is written, hosted, and
created by me Theo Henderson. Our producers Jamie Loftus, Hailey Fager,
Katie Fischel, and Lyra Smith.
Speaker 1 (54:28):
Our editor is Adam Want, our.
Speaker 5 (54:31):
Engineer is Joel Jerome, and our local art is also
by Katie Fisher.
Speaker 1 (54:37):
Thank you for listening.
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