Rose   Flashback    Thurlington in Colombia        Antiques Roadshow    Lucy Pepper   Crackerlandia

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  Rose Skelton 's  west africa Notes   Rose      

 Beth Jacob   Flashback

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 Fambai Zvakanaka                    Hello, hello!  

  POTASH       KIAMBU; A MOMENT OF REALITY

   Nähili In Turkmenistan     Gönübek

   Tug Pullman   Get The Deposit, Head!

  Miss Carnivorous       Why I love Black people, no really

  Miss Carnivorous      They don't serve my kind, or the tides have turned

   Miss Carnivorous     Whew... Miss C just escaped jury duty on a murder trial   

  Miss Carnivorous             When my step-dad was stationed in San Diego

  Guyana-Gyal      Pili-pili hoho   pili-pili ho ho

    Rose Skelton 's  west africa Notes   Rose      

  J G Page   I'M STAYING ON IN MOSCOW, IVAN IVANOVIC

  Patty seyun  Page  TO MY DOG

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Sunday, April 20, 2008    Fambai Zvakanaka        Hello, hello!
Greetings are very important in Africa. Whenever you meet someone it's important to ask how they are, how their family is and how their day is going so far. And when it is your turn to say how things are with you, you have to conform to the polite ritualistic responses. ("I slept well and had a good night if you did" or "my day is going well if yours is.") It is very rude (or marks you out as a tourist) to skip or curtail the greetings process or to actually tell the truth, ie mention you had nightmares all night, are suffering from a trapped nerve or you've twisted your ankle. You can of course tell your good friends and family the truth, but only after you've reassured them several times before that all is well. Of course, this means the whole greetings ceremony has to be repeated three or four times over.

Greetings occur at the office, when you pass someone in the street, in the bank queue, at the supermarket and basically anywhere you come across anyone else. If you are going for a walk or a cycle ride, its polite to greet everyone as you pass - and you often hear children cheerily calling "How are you?" as you slog your way, panting, up a steep hill.

The greetings rituals have lost a little in translation to English. If you say "hi" to someone in Harare, they will immediately respond "fine, and you?" - which can come as a bit of a surprise. It works well if you say hello or good morning, but for some reason "hi" has become "hello, how are you and your family this merry morning/afternoon/evening?" to locals, while of course, it just means "hello" to you and I. Fambai Zvakanaka

 

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Monday, April 07, 2008

                                              POTASH           KIAMBU. A MOMENT OF REALITY

 It has been many a month since I was in Kiambu. Kiambu, the land of my people; the motherland. So last week, finding the need to wean myself to reality; to set the pace for my re-engagement with the hoi polloi, I set out for Kiambu.

 Kiambu, being the most affluent of the Kikuyu districts, is without a doubt Kenya's least poverty struck region. But therein lies an irony because Kiambu is easily one of the most unsafe places, in Kenya, to live in. Kiambu is the birthplace of the scum that runs Nairobi nights. Long before robbers graduate into gun-totting killers and take over Nairobi, they are schooled in blood-thirst and impunity; a callous approach to human life, in the dark village paths and muddy cattle tracks of Kiambu.

 Kiambu the land of my birth. Let me take you there...

 Imagine you were a made gangster. It is about mid-day and you are about to rob a bank or a Forex Bureau on Kenyatta Avenue. At this hour, you know that the exit routes towards a westerly direction are your best bet. The traffic is low and the roads are less pot-holed. But most importantly, they all lead towards home: Kiambu.

 So, 12:15hrs. Grab the money and shoot your way out of the banking hall. Saunter towards the white Toyota Corolla, it is your getaway car. (You idiot of course you didn't come here in it, but it is your GETAWAY car now, so shot the driver and get in). You are the one driving and you should concentrate on just that but at the back of your head you should be listening out for a single shot. That is one of your accomplices putting a bullet in the head of a random woman across the street. (Just in case people get the despicable notion that you are packing toy guns like village petty thieves.)

 Step on the clutch and accelerator simultaneously. Good for effect. Then let go of the clutch and push the accelerator to the floor. Take a right at Kenyatta and Uhuru (fuck, isn't that a father and son from Kiambu, lucky bastards who robbed not just one bloody bank but a whole country without firing a single shot?) and brace yourself for aburst of rifle fire close by. It is the accomplice riding shot gun and he is either celebrating or nervous. Ignore him and keep driving.

 This route out of Nairobi is on a dual carriageway and runs through the upmarket shopping centre of Westlands, and its leafy environs, on and on into the most affluent constituency in the country: Kikuyu. Government statistics say that only sixteen per cent of the population here lives below the poverty line. (Fuck, so how come all the people you grew up knowing were poor? But that gun, that posse... will change all that. Well, maybe you will just die trying to change that!)

 'Welcome to Kiambu,' a billboard used to say. Urutaguo Mwiruti (It is taught to the self taught). Such is life.

 As you drive past, your attention is drawn to a clutter of peeling paint and dust streaked shopping centres interspersed with incomplete yet fully occupied apartment blocks sharing the same gated and well manicured compound as posh bungalows, rows of one-roomed rental shacks made of corrugated iron sheets and small holder farms, (a successful one- with four fat cows lolling in a pen and hundreds of chickens fluttering about a storied run- nested against a desolate one with a mangy dog chasing a gangly and featherless-necked hen around a wooden cabin with a massive column of smoke pushing out of a window-shaped hole in the wall). This, as I said, is Kikuyu constituency of Kiambu District in the Central Province of Kenya.

 I was born here. In one of the desolate farms. I was born here, not in an actual sense, but in the way that a Kenyan national ID puts it. I was born here because no one, as I grew up being told, is from Nairobi. I have lived in too many places; too many woe-begotten shacks, but this farm- this has the saddest memories. This place is real, the others are just dream places, spaces that I occupied in other lives that I cannot really return to. But this one, this one there will never be an escaping it. It feels so strange to be back.

 Now if someone could just get that cow to shut up, I could finish this story....

 POTASH. A KENYAN URBAN NARRATIVE

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Nähili In Turkmenistan                                 Gönübek

 

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                           Get The Deposit, Head!       Tug Pullman          

 from THE Confessions of a Car Dealer  

 

Most new car dealerships have a very similar infrastructure. The Salesperson greets the customers, shows them the vehicles, takes them for a test drive and begins the paperwork. When the time comes to discuss price and payments, the Salesperson must go to the Desk Manager.

The Desk Manager’s sole function is to get as much as possible for the vehicle. Many times it appears as though the Customer and salesperson are combining forces to get a good deal out of the Desk Manager. This is by design; classic “Good cop, Bad cop” rouse.

Unfortunately, for newer Salespeople who don’t know any better, the Desk Manager deceives the Salesperson into thinking it’s the best deal he’s willing to give the customer. They do this to ensure the Salesperson is convincing enough when pitching the deal to the Customer. They call this tactic “loading the Salesperson’s lips.”

To get a price and payment quote from the Desk Manager, at this new car franchise, you needed three things: A properly filled out buyers order with the customer’s information, a written commitment of what the customer will do today, and a deposit.

They teach this from day one in the training. These three things give the saleperson total control over the customer. If the customer says they are not buying today, you still get a written commitment.

As the trainer said, “Any customer will buy today for some price. If it’s a dollar down and a dollar per month, at least that’s a starting point.” The car dealership is just trying to take you out of shopping-mode and into negotiating-mode.

The problem arose for me when a customer saw one of our many “zero-down” commercials. Every one of our ads promised “zero-down.” This customer obviously didn’t want to put any money down - he repeated it several times. I was presented with a conundrum; I had to go to the Desk Manager with a commitment and deposit in order to get a price quote for my customer. How do I ask for a deposit when the customer clearly wants to put zero down as advertised?

I didn’t believe it to be very customer friendly to ask for a cash deposit just to get a price quote. So, I jotted down the customer’s commitment “Customer will take delivery today for zero down and $379 per month”. I trotted back to the Desk Manager with the paperwork and laid it down in front of him.

“Where’s your deposit, Head?” The Desk Manager called everybody Head; this was not a reference to my particular anatomy. “He wants to do the deal on TV, no money down”, I replied. “Still need a deposit to work a deal”, he said gruffly. So I returned to the customer. We had a fairly positive relationship up to his point, but me asking for a cash deposit to get a price quote didn’t go over well. Besides, he didn’t have any cash on him.

I returned to the “tower” (the raised platform in the showroom where the Desk Managers sit). “He doesn’t have any cash, and just wants a payment quote with no money down”. The Desk Manager looked at me for a second, and immediately paged my Manager.

Once my Manager arrived, he said, “This weak sister can’t get me a deposit, will you take a turn and show him how it’s done?” He was half-joking, but obviously trying to make a point.

The floor Manager’s role is what they call, in the car business, a “closer”. They go to the customer to get the deal done. They are trained negotiators and practice this skill constantly. What happened next was one of the most shocking things I witnessed in my short tenure.

The closer came out of the office with my customer’s watch. He actually took his watch as a deposit!

When I asked how he did that, he casually replied he always gets something. Cell phones, wedding rings, even shoes! He entered the tower like a conquering hero as he presented the watch and revised commitment.

They looked at me and said “Now that’s how it’s done, Head!”

I thought to myself…Not in my world it isn’t.
by Eric Miltsch Jul 09, 2007

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Friday, November 18, 2005

                         Miss Carnivorous  Why I love Black people, no really

 
I have lived very few places where I wasn't outnumbered by Blacks. I lived in Oakland California for 30 years. I lived in Maryland before that and was bused to Baltimore to attend school. I lived on Treasure Island Naval base and at that time they were busing kids from Hunter's Point San Francisco to school on the island. So you see, I have had extensive contact with Blacks all my life.

I have had contact with many other races as well. My closest friends have been Chinese American and Native American women. I have to say that the contact with other races has not affected me 1/100 as much as being in day to day contact with Blacks has. I was never a wanna be type in school. Although, my divorced mother was on SSI and I received welfare and food stamps, I knew we were culturally different than the Black kids. For one thing I could read when I was three. Very few of the Black kids I went to school with seemed interested in reading. I hated school and rarely attended Jr. High. Blacks were part of the reason I hated school. They were disruptive. They were cruel and disrespectful of everyone else, while demanding the utmost respect from the kids of other races and the teachers. They would make the White kids tie their shoes. They would steal our money and Bonnie Bell lipgloss. They would dump us in the garbage cans and pour milk on us. I knew that they were mistaking fear for respect. Teachers and students were afraid of the Black students.

The teachers were also terrified of being considered racist. The teachers would not enforce any discipline in the classroom because they would get accused of racism the minute they told a Black student to be quiet or to sit down. The Blacks would say that their parents told them not to take no shit off no white teacher. The teachers always backed down from confrontations with Blacks. This also set up a two tiered system, whereby White and Hispanic students would receive discipline and suspensions for things that Blacks got away with. That's not to say that Blacks were never suspended, they were, but for much worse things than Whites were. I have to say that I don't remember an Asian ever being suspended for anything.

Blacks would never do their homework and they would not participate in class at all. They wouldn't bring their books or writing materials. They would strongarm other students into letting them copy tests. As a consequence they never learned anything. It went on and on. I dropped out in the 8th grade. I received counseling and went back to an alternative school. The rules at the school were very lax and little was expected of us. The students were again mostly Black and troubled, but they managed to go along pretty well as long as nobody interfered with their freedom. I dropped out again and took the High School Equivalency Exam and graduated a year early. The difference between me and the Black kids was that although I had not attended school very often, I had still managed to gain enough knowlege to pass the test and graduate. The consequences for the Black kids were more dire than mine.

I had been a Navy brat in my early years. I had traveled extensively. I had been a lot of places and done a lot of things. Even when I was a teenager, my best friend, a Native American, would drag me all over the place to go to Native American Pow Wows. I got to see and meet a lot of different people. I believe that people are very different regionally as well and I was exposed to that. The Black kids weren't. They never left the inner city. They didn't know that they weren't the majority everywhere else. They didn't know where anyone else came from and they didn't really care about anyone else. I remember once in class a Black student pointed at a blond white girl and said, "I come from Africa, what about her she don't come from nowhere." It seemed as if they had no interest in the wider world at all.

I have to say I thought I hated Black people then
I have to say I thought I hated Black people then. I was also pretty goodlooking. I had Farrah Fawcett hair and was curvy. Once this drug addict walked up to me and said, "Farrah Fawcett, what you doin' standin' here at this bus stop? You should be driving a big ol' Mercedes!" That was funny. I was harassed by Black men every time I had to stand at a bus stop and that was every day. Black men would say horrible things to me and sometimes they would say these things in front of my mother and even my grandmother. Once the Pimp that lived up the street from me showed up in his El Dorado to pick me up from school. It was degrading and humiliating. I am aware that the same thing happened to black women in the South at the hands of White men, but it didn't make it easier to take. I found Black men physically beautiful, but lacking in control and that made them unsexy to me.

So, as I grew up I had no good opinion of Blacks. My mom had gone to the same high school that I was assigned to and her classes had a slight Black majority because many Blacks had come to work in the shipyards. Of course, Blacks were very afraid to act up at the time, so they behaved well in school and if my mom's yearbook is any example, they learned to read and write rather well indeed. They also were well represented in athletics, but even the athletes could read and write. My mom loved school and did not understand my problems. I was becoming very racist. I thought that I would love to live in an all white neighborhood. When I saw blond people I was fascinated and charmed. I began to resent my mother for choosing to move back to the city she grew up in. I felt that my life would have been so much better if we lived among our own people. This is not to say that I did not have Black friends. My first boyfriend was a Black nerd who's mom was a nurse from Jamaica. I hung around at alternative school with the Black students. I seemed to be able to form bonds with individuals, but that didn't change the fact that I wanted to be away from Blacks for the most part. I felt I was just too sensitive and that they were too insensitive and that we could never live together.

On the other hand, I was interested primarily in Black music. I would listen to my mom's Miriam Makeba record over and over again. I loved the blues and motown and above all Bob Marley. I could however, distance myself from Bob's lyrics. I knew that Blacks were still struggling in many parts of the world and I wished them well and well away from me. I did not wish ill on Blacks and I never wanted them to be humiliated or hurt again, I just wished that they could behave like civilized people should. In fact, I knew that Blacks were capable of it and I didn't understand why, when it would have been easier, they wouldn't just go with the flow. I wanted for Blacks what I wanted for my own children. I wanted them to be able to go anywhere, any country. I wanted them to behave in a mannerly fashion that would make them acceptable to anyone. I wanted them to be able to span the classes and the races and speak intelligently on many subjects.

I used to babysit for rich families and the developmental differences between the Black kids I saw regularly on public transit and those rich children were immense. Even the rich kids that had behavioral problems had huge vocabularies and could express curiosity and get feedback from adults. But the little Black kids would be treated like irritating adults by their teen age mothers. the poor kids would get ignored if they asked questions about birds or dogs or anything else. The differences were staggering. I began to lose all hope of anything changing for the better.

Then I got a job in Oakland. I was in the lower job classification due to my lack of job skills and education. I was one of the few whites in this job class. I was surrounded by Black women. These women started out being incredibly kind to me. I had an incident with my mom that made me very angry and I wanted to report her for welfare fraud. A Black girl I worked with talked me out of it. They told me to join the Credit Union so that I could get a car. One of them helped me find my first apartment in downtown Oakland. I remember she asked the manager of one of the apartment buildings if the place had "meeces". When the woman said, "It depends on how clean you are'" my friend dragged me out right then. Every pay day the black girls would go out to the Sizzler and they would invite me. They were naughty about men and it was a lot of fun to be with them. I had always been a fancy dresser for a white girl and I felt more comfortable dressed up with them than with my slovenly white friends.

I also met older, genteel Black ladies from the South
I also met older, genteel Black ladies from the South, that cared very much indeed about education and culture. I worked with them for three years. I moved to Fremont California with a boyfriend. I missed Oakland dearly. I missed the sight and sounds of Black people. I did not know how much a part of me they had become . My boyfriend would bring a gun everytime he came to pick me up in Oakland. I thought this was funny, that he was so scared. I still had scary incidents sometimes with Black men on the street, but it seemed more bearable. I also heard of scary racist incidents from my Black friends. One Black girl's boyfriend was fishing with his dad and some white guys came and forced them to eat their bait at gun point.

The worst incident that happen to me was that my sister and I went to a restaurant that had hired a well known Creole chef from New Orleans, for a special night of Creole food and music. The chef had just written a book. We took our Latino boyfriends. First they seated us in a back room at a makeshift table (reserved especially ior whites and latinos, I guess). We were never served, and neither saw nor heard from a waiter again. We saw an opportunity to move to a table in the main dining room (the only dining room). We moved to a central location and were still ignored. We finally left, starving, but knowing that it was useless to complain. I blame my sister for wearing Braids!! She looked too good in them!! There are two sides to every story and as bad as some of the situations I have been in seem to me, they are nothing compared with eating raw chicken livers at gun point in the dark in Tracy.

I always felt that I was just spending the night in Fremont but my heart was still in Oakland. I eventually moved back. Then I was transferred to another department. There again I made instant friends with the Black people that worked in that department. I felt more at home with them than anyone. I have had many friendships with many Black men and women at work and they have been very supportive of me. One of the guys is from Philly and he is a photographer and he likes to talk to me about art and living on the East coast. We have much in common. I go to Black people's weddings and funerals and crab feeds, where there are about 490 Blacks to 10 whites.

I became pregnant at the age of 42 and one of the Black women, a newer employee, used to take me out to dinner and take me grocery shopping, because I didn't have a car. She didn't even know me that well, but she was an immense help to me.

While all this is happening to me, I am realizing that many things I thought were not true, but many are. These women believe anything the Union and the Democrats tell them. Most of these women have man trouble. They are willing to share men with other women for fear of being alone. They support their children with very little, if any, help from the fathers. They rely too heavily on corporal punishment of their children. Some of the beatings that they tell about seem to border on abuse and also seem to be ineffective in changing their children's behavior. They spend a fortune on clothes for their children. Money I feel could be better spent at finding an apartment in a better neighborhood with better schools. I ride the bus wth a woman that travels on the bus everyday to another city to take her Black daughter to a school in Chinatown where the academic standards are very high. That child is doing great in school. I walked by the school once and she was asking some Chinese girls if she could join a Chinese jump rope game. The Chinese girls shot her down. I felt bad for her, but as long as she does well in school, success is the best revenge.

They are not good with money
Most of these women have troubled family members. They are not good with money. They get pregnant when they know that they shouldn't. They have substance abuse problems. Many of the things that happen to them seem preventable to me, but impossible to avoid for them. One of the reasons that they run out of money is that they are so generous. They are the most loyal people on earth. I know that the Chinese help family, but it is not in an unconditional way like Blacks do. I hear about neices and nephews and grandbabies and all the extended family members getting money, food and support, sometimes at the expense of the person giving the aid. Blacks are loyal and they do it out of love. I sometimes think that they shouldn't help these relatives, that it does more harm than good and that they should think of themselves for a change, but they are most unselfish and they might feel worse if they didn't help.

We once had a worker that was new. She was a secret crack addict. She could not do her work at all. My co-worker and I, (the only two whites) were being driven insane by the mistakes this woman was making. One of the Black women I am very close with was covering up for the drug addict. We ended up not speaking for months because she was angry that we were picking on this Black woman and she had to protect her. She has admitted that she was wrong to do it, but it just is so ingrained she can't help it. So I see the fiercely loyal and protective nature of Black women in particular, nearly every day.

One of my best friends is a Black woman from Panama. She just does not see color and treats everyone the same. I had a mixed race boyfriend and he was a lot of things and unusual looking and everywhere we went people would ask him what he was. My friend from Panama never asked. One time I asked her about it and she said, "You know I don't care about such things," When she brings pictures from her church, you see that it is a multiracial congregation. She also lives in a neighborhood in Vallejo with her African American husband and they are among the very few Blacks that live there and they get along with everybody. She recently went to the Grand Canyon with another Black friend and she did say that although they were the only Blacks at the dude ranch they stayed at, they were treated like royalty. I wish we could all be like my friend. Expect the best, because you deserve it. Treat everyone as you'd like to be treated yourself. Miss Carnivorous  

 

Thursday, October 16, 2008
                 Whew... Miss C just escaped jury duty on a murder trial   Miss Carnivorous  


Along with the Christmas trees and family gatherings, there's another
end-of-the-year ritual in Oakland - a candlelight vigil for the murdered.


The body count is woven into the civic consciousness here - a number chased
by homicide inspectors, studied by criminologists, lamented in churches,
reported by journalists. Every mayor leaves City Hall on broken promises to
quell the violence, and the killings continue. An additional 115 have been
killed this year, putting Oakland on pace for another gruesome record.

In the last five years, 557 people were slain on the city's streets, making
Oakland the state's second-most murderous city, behind Compton.

Most victims are young, black men who are dying in forgotten neighborhoods
of East and West Oakland.

A handful of their killers, speaking from prison, describe an environment
where violence is so woven into the culture that murder has become a symbol
of manhood.
The inmates say the only difference between these neighborhoods and prison
is the absence of walls. The same hierarchies apply - the meanest rise to
the top. It's a survival skill that ensures ownership of drug corners, a
sense of self-worth, female attention and protection from attack.

Experts fear that the neighborhoods are only getting more violent. There are
entire blocks without a single two-parent family, where drug dealers have
become the predominant male role models, and children fend for themselves in
crowded, chaotic homes where they are routinely exposed to drugs, sex and
guns.
 

George Hughes - Gansta

Criminal families are on their third and fourth generations. Grandparents -
the ones who have historically stepped in to help raise fatherless boys and
instill a sense of right and wrong - are dying off.

Back in the 1980s, drug dealers who first brought crack cocaine to Oakland
used to hide their activities from their parents because it was shameful,
but now it's a full-blown family business, said Michelle Gandy, a private
investigator who interviews murder defendants for Alameda County
court-appointed criminal defense attorneys.

"The kids today recognize that their parents are in it, too, so there's this
hopelessness," she said.

Increasingly, the young murder suspects coming to the station for
questioning seem to lack basic morality, said Sgt. Tim Nolan, who has been
investigating Oakland homicides for 17 years.

"There are more and more families where there's less and less structure," he
said. "Talking to these suspects day in and out, there's a higher percentage
today with no sense of right and wrong. It's frightening, but we are
creating super-criminals."

All it takes is a look, a put-down or a lost fight, and bullets fly.
Disrespect has become the No. 1 reason to kill.

Killings have been concentrated in these neighborhoods for so long that
revenge killings continue for decades. There's a six-degrees-of-separation
phenomenon that happens after each death: The killers and their victims can
typically trace a relationship through family, friends, schools or prison
stints.

That's why Oakland murders are rarely random. More often they are the result
of historical battles between crews who hold Mafia-like influence on blocks
and drug corners.

"Many people who live there rarely leave Oakland, let alone their block, so
their disputes take on epic proportions," said Nolan.

Witnesses are cowed into silence because snitches have been known to
disappear. Nearly half of all murders in Oakland go uncharged for lack of a
willing witness, so a shooter knows he has about a 50-50 chance of getting
away with it.

"Murder is hardly ever a whodunit in Oakland," said criminal defense
attorney William Du Bois, who has been representing Oakland homicide
suspects for nearly three decades.

Because witnesses won't testify, certain Oakland neighborhoods have an
abnormally high per capita rate of killers walking the streets. They are
known, feared, and have an incredibly toxic influence on impressionable
young boys aching for structure.

"In these neighborhoods of concentrated poverty, all the doctors, lawyers,
pharmacists, architects and postal workers have left," said Richard Miles,
chief executive officer of Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Bay Area. "The
kids have nobody but drug lords to look up to."

For this report, The Chronicle conducted prison and telephone interviews
with five convicted Oakland killers, reviewed the court files of 60 murder
trials, listened to police interrogation tapes and talked with homicide
inspectors, district attorneys, family members, criminal defense lawyers,
forensic therapists and criminologists.

The inmates who spoke to The Chronicle hoped that their stories would
dissuade younger generations from following in their footsteps. Their
stories, and those told in the court files, show that Oakland killers share
many characteristics.

They are young. Most killed before their 25th birthday. A majority grew up
without a father - he was either murdered, incarcerated or abandoned his
children.

Mom is typically absent, too, either because she's working several jobs for
minimum wage or because she's also lost to the streets through drugs,
prostitution or prison.

Many of the convicted killers were quasi-homeless in grade school, moving
every 90 days on eviction cycles, or bouncing between friends' and
relatives' homes, where they slept on recliners and couches and floors.

Inside the home is pure chaos. Typically, they live with a third-generation
relative, an elderly grandmother or aunt, who also opens her home to several
other wayward relatives. They all pile into one home, bringing their
boyfriends and girlfriends and their children. There's no particular person
in charge, no house rules, and people come and go.

Often it's in these houses where young boys first learn how to hold a gun,
how to break a rock of cocaine into dime and nickel bags for sale.

Without parents to help them mature, the mental world of these young killers
stays stuck in an infantile, egotistic state, said forensic psychologist
Shawn Johnston, who has conducted more than 15,000 court evaluations of
adult and juvenile criminals in 15 Northern California counties.

"What keeps us from killing each other is empathy, and we learn it from
bonding with parents who pick us back up when we get hurt or teased as
children," Johnston said. "Without it, you get guys who live in a constant
state of protecting the fantasy that they are the most important thing this
side of the Milky Way. And because they don't have empathy, they will shoot
or stab to protect their illusion."

Teachers who work with these boys in the Alameda County Juvenile Justice
Center say the first thing they do is stock their classrooms with food, to
help their students concentrate. Young boys fend for themselves in the
absence of structured mealtimes - grabbing what they can from a fast-food
restaurant or a corner liquor store when they can scrape together or steal
some money.

There is an equivalent of a mafia in Oakland's ghettos. Some kids are born
into families that "claim" streets. Children in these families are expected
to put the family's gang wars above anything else - they skip school when
the turf wars heat up and the gang members are expected to stand out on the
streets in a show of force.

"Everyone in my family was in the game - my mother, stepfather, brother,
cousins," said Donte Osborne, 28, who is serving a 15-year sentence in
Corcoran State Prison for second-degree murder.

"I caught a dope case when I was 10 years old and sold to a decoy," he said.
"I adapted to my surroundings. It's not like I wanted to do it, but if I
didn't, I would have been left out of my family."

Without anyone in charge of their moral development, young boys come up with
their own rules. When they get in disputes, they don't have the ability to
resolve them because no one has ever taught them how to manage anger and
stress other than with fists or a gun.

In this world, challenges cannot be left unanswered. A boy who is jumped,
robbed or insulted and doesn't respond is labeled "soft," or a "punk" or a
"bitch." He becomes prey. Once he is perceived as weak, the attacks keep
coming. He loses not only his honor, but his friends and his personal
safety, until he fights back and wins - sometimes via homicide.

"It doesn't matter how bad your circumstances are, at a cellular genetic
level you know it's not supposed to be this way and you're pissed off with
no way to ameliorate it," Miles of Big Brothers Big Sisters said.

A majority of the men studied by The Chronicle had criminals in their
families. Most had juvenile records, the majority for selling or carrying
drugs. Many developed their own chemical habits and a little more than half
dropped out of school. Their role models are the drug dealers on the corner
who have the cars, clothes, girls, money and most of all - respect.

"In a dysfunctional environment, it's prestigious to be a gangster, and it
inspires you to act the same," said convicted killer Ivan Kilgore, 32, who
is serving a life sentence in California State Prison, Sacramento.

"It fulfills that ego, gives you a sense of identity. Big dudes respect you.
It's like being a star athlete - kids in constructive environments, their
peers give them accolades and support to continue their good behavior by
bolstering their ego. It's identical in the streets, only the behavior that
is rewarded is different. It's like, 'Hey! I saw you in a stolen car!' and
you get a high five." Respect is money, money is power and power is
masculinity. Violence defines you
as a man.

"These kids have one thing in this world, and when you have nothing else, no
money, no access, no privileges, no resources, no means, the only thing you
have, from a little boy on, is your respect," investigator Gandy said.

Inmates told The Chronicle that it was the drug dealers who gave them their
first sense of belonging. The gang on the block is the first group that
wants them, that pays attention to their whereabouts, that asks what they
are doing and what they think about things. Sometimes there's a girl out
there who thinks they're cute. All of a sudden the neglected boy has a
posse - the first place that feels like home.

Prisoner Hamisi Spears, serving a 39-year sentence in High Desert State
Prison in Susanville, described the criminal evolution as an organic
process - like a seed that's planted and watered and grows into a shoot.

"You see these guys who are three or four years older than you, who are not
doing kid stuff anymore, not playing tag football in the street. We watch
him and all of a sudden he's got a car, he's dressing differently, and we
want that too so we approach and say, 'Wassup, man?' "

At first, the older guy will likely shoo the youngster away, telling the boy
he's not ready to get in the game.
Then one day he'll ask the boy to ride in his car. It's the moment that the
boy has been aching for.

"You're there, it's nice, the music is playing, and he'll run an errand.
He'll say 'Here, hold this.' It's a gun or some dope. He'll jump out and
then jump right back and then he knows he can trust you. He'll turn to you
and say, 'Hey, you hungry?' and go get you something to eat. You are part of
him now."

Now the boy is loyal, even if caught selling drugs for the older dealer. The
code of the street dictates never telling on the man who is providing for
you.

"When you get out of jail, you've got street cred," Spears said. "He sees
you, knows you stopped him from going to jail, and he'll respect you, take
you and buy you a couple of outfits."

Boys go from nobody to somebody overnight.
Navigating this world is delicate. Shootings can occur simply because
someone made a movement that could have been interpreted as a reach for a
gun in a waistband.
While this is a common strategy in court to claim self-defense, there is an
element of truth to it. Many of the killers studied by The Chronicle killed
enemies who put word out on the street that they were going to kill first.

In this warped environment, killing someone can actually protect you. It's a
way to keep others in fear. Gun laws can't reach places like East and West
Oakland. Rarely do boys go get a gun and kill - the gun is already there.
Guns are as common as cell phones. Friends give their friends guns for
protection after losing a fistfight. Every day, drug addicts trade guns for
a fix. Groups of boys share guns, keeping them hidden in abandoned homes, in
empty lots, in the rain gutters and under their beds.

Boys don't think they will live past 25, so they don't live their life as if
they will. None of the convicted killers told The Chronicle that they were
worried about their futures or the consequences of their criminal lifestyle
before going to prison. To be a square, to go to school, work for minimum
wage and shun the "game," takes an enormous amount of patience and personal
risk in the middle of what is, in effect, a war zone. The payoff is too far
off for someone who doesn't plan for middle age or a career. At the time,
the quick buck didn't seem like a bad choice, inmates said.

Only a handful of the killers had legitimate jobs. Criminal records and lack
of a high school diploma, no car to get to work, and no support from
immediate family ensure that they simply don't fit in to what society sees
as employee material.
It was only after they were taken out of their environment and given years
to reflect behind bars that they had time to grasp the concept of another
way of life.

The experts - and the killers - say a mentor might have saved them, anyone
from the outside who could have shown them another way to be a man.
After so many years in prison, the convicted killers who spoke to The
Chronicle have had time to think about why their lives turned out the way
that they did. They are remorseful, they are angry at themselves and the
circumstances that they were born into, and they are trying to do something
useful with what's left of their tragic lives.

It's a second chance that their victims will never get.
"I don't care how bad your situation is, as we grow up in this world we know
right from wrong," said Gerlen Anderson, who held her son William as he lay
dying from Ivan Kilgore's shotgun blast near a pay phone at 30th and San
Pablo avenues in 2000.
When Anderson saw that her 21-year-old son wasn't going to make it, she
whispered in his ear, "Go to the angels."

Kilgore claimed that Anderson had repeatedly attacked him and robbed him of
$100.

Oakland: A Plague of Killing logo
Coming Monday: Experts say mentoring can help stem the wave of violence on
Oakland's streets, one boy at a time. Miss Carnivorous
 

 

Miss Carnivorous              They don't serve my kind, or the tides have turned

   August 2008

One of my Black co-workers keeps trying to get us to all go out after work for drinks. He named a Black owned dinner club that I have had a little experience with.

"No way would I go there, they don't serve the likes of me," I told him.

"What are you talking about?" he said.

"I went there with my sister and our Hispanic boyfriends and we never were served or even acknowledged, I replied. I am never, ever going there again."

Another Black co-worker said, "If you go with us you will be served."

"No she won't, right-wing co-worker said. Remember when we called in a phone order and I went with you guys (the Blacks) to pick it up and they gave you your food and looked at me and said, "Your food is not ready yet."

"Oh yeah, said Black co-worker, embarrassed. It seems to me I do remember that."Miss Carnivorous  

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   Miss Carnivorous   When my step-dad was stationed in San Diego

Monday, October 20, 2008

I always preferred trips to Tijuana instead of Disneyland. When in Tijuana we would go to the bullfights, the Jai Alai palace to watch jai alai games, see Aztec pole dancers unwind from on high, go to glass blowing factories and eat tamales, which always have been my very favorite food.Miss Carnivorous

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Tuesday, May 13, 2008
                                                          Guyana-Gyal      Pili-pili hoho

In Kenya, they got a pepper so hot, they does call it pili-pili ho ho. But my mother does use good ole Guyana peppers to make pepper sauce so fiery, it does burn out that ho ho from your mouth and make pili pili taste pale in comparison. According to me brother-in-law, my mother pepper sauce is so hot, it should be illegal. It is wanted by families in several countries, Kenya too.

Last week my mother decide she gon make pepper sauce. “I gon make pili-pili hee hee,” she tell me.

“It name pili-pili ho ho, mummy. And it is a pepper in Kenya, not the name of a pepper sauce.”

“Ahh man, whatever.”

She buy two kinda peppers on Thursday afternoon. On Friday morning, Rehana we cleaning girl don gloves, wash peppers. My mother start to blend.

Was a good day, sun shining, birds singing, domesticity humming all around, fish frying smells wafting in the air. I retire to me throne. That is the place where I does dump all me worries, solve problems, save the world. I am humming too, examining me toes, oh what cute li’l toes, haha, I wonder if I should grow me toenails so long they can cut…chak…any bandit arteries.

“G…?” my mother call in a soft, pleading voice, outside the toilet door.

Uh-oh.

When she use that voice, you’re dead, me sister would say.

“Yes?” I ask with trepidation.

“You can do me a BIG favour please?”

“I’m in the looooo, mummy.”

“When you done. You can go to the supermarket and buy some Secret Ingredient for the pepper sauce?”   

Horror seize me, if I did have constipation, it woulda done right there and then. This is nine a.m. I don’t drive at nine a.m. I hate fighting traffic at nine a.m. I does wait until ten before I venture out, when traffic ease up. Imagine! My mother is willing to sacrifice me, she love-child, for pepper sauce.

I try to fight like a man going down. “Mummy, you need it now? Now, now, now? When you go to see the lawyer later, you can’t get it?”

“No,” the small voice say. “I need it now. I got to blend it in now. Awright, is okay, I gon go meself.”

As me sister would say, I dead. I ain’t got a choice now.

East Indian mothers got a skill that I hear Jewish and Italian mothers got. Chinese mothers too. They can make you do anything you don’t want to do, don’t feel like doing right now, this minute. I ain’t know if is something they develop as mothers…or if they got it in they genes. Whatever, they come armed with a set of sweet talk; harsh commands that don’t brook no arguments; tears - this one they save for dire times; guilt trips. Sometimes they fire all at once. No use fighting.

“Okay, okay, I gon go.”

But the horror of traffic still had me in its grip. I can’t give in so easy, I realise. I pelt out of the loo, towards the kitchen. With one last gasp, I say something about wasting gas.

“Well, YOU said you would go,” mother declare in a firm voice. And whirrrr went the blender.

“Ararararara,” I try to continue the argument but the blender roar more loud than me. Rehana looking on with amused smile twitching she lips. My mother got a sweet, calm look on she face, she smiling lovingly. At the pepper sauce.


(…to be continued, I run outta time and got to go do some craft-planning...place bets on who win...or rather, who get the last laff...)

Guyana-Gyal
 

Pili-pili hoho   part II

     Guyana-Gyal           How to win and get away with it

Governments would do well to employ a certain type of mama to negotiate with the *enemy* for them. It might be a’ unfair battle though. The *enemy* ain’t got a chance. With just a few well-chosen words, these mamas gon make the *enemy* repent, give up in no time at all. Problem done.

Trouble does only happen when these mamas produce daughters just like they selves…daughters who want to wrest sweet victory from they mamas. And to top it all, the daughters want to assert Independence. A daughter can move wayyy across the country.

But no matter how far she go, the mother gon get she.

Don’t get me wrong, it ain’t as if these mamas does order you to do anything. Is just that they know how to make honey drip from they voice; is just that certain way they ask.

If you refuse though, you gon hear the thing you dread.

“Is alright..I gon do it...don’t worry. I can do it myself.”

No university degree in the world does prepare you to deal with this. As Lis say, “Arghtlbggghh! WHY! WHO teach dem to be so??? WHO?! Show me de person. SHOW dem to me.” Lis got two universities degrees.

Now, if you, the daughter, point out this guilt trip behaviour to your mother, she gon look at you, innocence shining all over she face.

But wait.

Look in she eyes.

What you see?

Eh?

Tell me what you see?

Bold shamelessness.

And a li’l smirk.

On Friday when my mother ask me, in that special voice, to drive to the supermarket to buy the Secret Ingredient for she pepper sauce, I couldn’t refuse.

But I had to say no!

I ain’t risking me life, fighting in that 9 a.m. traffic to get one li’l bottle of Secret Ingredient. No way. Not if she can get it later when she go to the lawyer.

But I couldn’t refuse.

Not after listening to that Mighty Sparrow song the day before. A song about a wutliss…good-for-nothing…son who couldn’t pay he mother doctor bill but when she dead, he looking to buy the best coffin. When that song play on the radio last week, I weep like a gyal watching Indian movie. Ow, I gon never be like that bad son, no, no, I vow. To add to me melotrauma, the radio then play a maudlin Sundar Popo song. A mother love will never diiiiiie…

How could I refuse after all o’ this? Plus Sunday would be Mother’s Day. And yes, yes, me is the hypocrite who does say Everyday should be Mother’s Day.

Me and me big mouth.

Suddenly I get a brainwave. The corner shop! Just ten minutes walk! Maybe they have the Secret Ingredient. But suppose I walk all that way and they ain’t have it?

Another brainwave.

I gon phone the shop.

Ow me Lawd, I don’t know the number.

Another brainwave…brainwaves does come fast when I am desperate.

I phone a friend. “Friend, whaz the telephone number of the people you do business with, next door to Mrs. Seeta shop?”

Now, I call the people me friend do business with. “Hello, can you do me a li’l favour, please?” For some reason, the voice I use sound a bit familiar. I can’t imagine where I learn this sweet-talkin’, manipulative tone from.

“Y-y-yes,” the man reply, nervous. He don’t know me from Eve to Jezebel.

“Please, please, can you check out the phone number on the sign on Mrs. Seeta shop, please?”

“Okay, hold on one minute.” I think I hear a heavy sigh, but never mind, you got to block out these things to get what you want. I thank the man very graciously when he return with the number.

Mrs. Seeta the shop-owner say yes, she got the Secret Ingredient.

“Yipeeee!” I holler.

“In five pound containers,” Mrs. Seeta say.

My mother only need a few drops.

Well people, lemme tell you. The secret to winning is to let the other person think they win.

I wasn’t going to drive in no snarly traffic right away, now, this minute. And I wasn’t going to walk with no heavy five pound container in that briling, scorching sun, so hot it can bar-b-cue you, and you can have yourself for lunch.

Phone Cousin Yasmeen; yes, she shop does sell small bottles. I tramp down the road, sun so fiery, you can make leather shoes out of me now. But on the way there, I stop in at The Sour Lady shop where I try not to patronise. Praises be, they sell small bottles.

Triumphant, I bring home a li’l bottle of the Secret Ingredient.

My mother blend it into she pepper sauce, smiling in that pleased way.

Is okay, I can be magnanimous, let she think she win, I don’t mind. She don’t have to know that I win…I didn’t have to drive to the supermarket like she did ask me to.

 

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      J G Page   I'M STAYING ON IN MOSCOW, IVAN IVANOVIC

And just as she was thinking about the examination, she was overtaken by
her friend Ivan Ivanovic in a carriage of four horses. When he came up to
her he recognized her and bowed.

-How are you Marya Goggynovna,- he said to her. You are not going to spend
the Eve of the year alone in Moscow, are you? My dacia is nostalgic for you
and I have cut enough firewood to warm us all winter long.

-Happy to see you, Ivan Ivanovic. I was lost in thought..I believe, they
have caught a government clerk in the town. They have taken him away. The
story is that with some Germans he killed Alexeyev the Mayor , in Moscow .
-Who told you that?-
-They were reading it in the paper, at my school, in the Teachers' Room. A
conspiracy, I believe. I am so shaken my mind has gone blank.

Marya sat in silence in the carriage. For twenty years now she had been a
schoolmistress, and there was no reckoning how many times during all those
years she had been to the school downtown for her salary. And whether it
were winter as now, or a rainy autumn, or a warm spring, it was all the same
to her, and she always, invariably, longed for one thing only: to get to the
end of her day at school.

-The roads leading to the Dacia are dry, Marya and even if the woods are
covered in snow and the stairway to the Dacia are frozen over, there is a
warm April sunshine. Will you join me there, my beloved one?
-Please hear what I have to say. My Uncle Filippov has fallen sick, He needs
to be taken care of. It is futile to try to entice me with your talk of
sunshine gleaming through the transparent ice in the woods.
-"Marya, you are a compassionate soul."

Marya's carriage stopped at the level crossing, on the other side of the
rails a cart laiden down with cucumbers was crossing the road. Marya stared
at this in silence, fascinated by what she saw.

-What does your silence mean, Marya Goggynovna. Possibly you don't love me
anymore? Do you wish for us to part?

While Ivan was talking, Marya suddenly remembered that she had no butter
left at home, and this caused her mood to change.

-You know very well I never loved you, Ivan Ivanovic,so parting from you
would be meaningless.
-The ducks in the pond near the dacia are restless, it is as if they
perceived your absence.

- (There he is going on about his ducks again, with butter at two kopecks
more than last year, how am I supposed to think about his ducks, well,
anything to keep him happy). I am so sorry about your ducks, Ivan Ivanovic.

-And how are things with the pope's wife?

-Pope's wife? How come you are interested in her? Are you thinking of
studying theology?

-Three weeks ago you told me you couldn't come to my dacia, since the
pope's wife had slid on the ice and you had to take care of her. Do you know
what they say? Some love the pope, some others love the pope's wife.

-Our pope's wife is better now, but she could still need me.
-I ask myself how the saintly Mother Russia would manage without you. The
white bear is peering out from the clearing..it looks as if he too needs
your help.
-Back to that old story of the white bear. Cucumbers have almost doubled in
price and here I am thinking about the white bear and his attacks of
melancholy. What am I going to serve up with the tea? My guests are going to
think I have become a miser.

-Hold on, Marya.
The cart lurched violently and was on the point of overturning when
something heavy rolled on to Marya Goggygovna's feet, it was her parcel of
purchases. There was a steep ascent uphill through the argile. Here in the
winding ditches rivulets were gurgling. The water seemed to have gnawed away
at the road how was one supposed to get by! The horses breathed hard. Ivan
Ivanovic got out of his carriage and walked at the side of the road in his
long overcoat. He was hot.

-What a road!- he said, and laughed again. It would soon smash up his
carriage.-
-Nobody obliges you to drive about in such weather,- said Marya in a surly
voice. You should stay at home.-

-I get bored at home, you sweet child. I don't like staying at home." "Hold
on, Marya!" .
Again a sharp ascent uphill. . . . And again she thought of her pupils, of
the examination, of the School Council; and when the wind brought the sound
of the retreating carriage these thoughts were mingled with others. She
longed to think of beautiful eyes, of love, of the happiness which would
never be. . . .
-You are silent, Marya, you are silent and remorseful at having abandoned
me.
-You know, Ivan ivanovic, high quality gherkins are unobtainable, unless you
buy them at the black market. Rumours are that some relatives of the Czar
bought up all the gherkins from the farmers to take advantage of monopoly .

-Your mood has changed so much of late, Marya.
Marya Goggynovna starts to cry, as if all the gherkins in Moskow had
abandoned her house for ever. Now she is a child in a large house on the
other side of the Moskowa river, and all people around her, peasants coming
and going, make a lot of noise but carry in low price fruit and chikens, and
loads of high quality gherkins offered for a few kopecki. She felt as though
she had been living in that part of the country for ages and ages, for a
hundred years, and it seemed to her that she knew every stone, every tree on
the road from the town to her school. Her past was here, her present was
here, and she could imagine no other future than the school, the road to the
town and back again, and again the school and again the road.

- You are crying, Marya Goggynovna, you are sad. You will find me up in the
dacia when the frost thaws? It will take only a few weeks.
- I do not know it, Ivan Ivanovic, perhaps my neighbor will have to go to
Petersburg, and then she will ask me to take care of the cherry-trees garden
.
- -Will you come then?

- We will see, Ivan Ivanovic, we will see.
 (translated by Mary C. Goggin)

 

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                                           Patty seyun  Page         TO MY DOG

After I read this letter, yours being the first I read after sitting down at the computer, I raced outside (it was 7:25 p.m.) and looked out into the sky just knowing I was going to see a single star.  At first I didn't see anything and thought perhaps the house was blocking it.  Then I looked straight up and there it was. 

 After my meditation yesterday I decided to try one more time to revive him with serum and cortisone and some other medicines.  Half way through the bottle after 250 cc he became really restless and pulled the needle out (seemingly accidentally).  The doctor had told me 300 cc should be the limit so I was satisfied that I had done all that I could.   I was able to get my first good night's sleep since I got back from the States.

This morning when I woke up I realized that although he had a little more energy he still didn't want to live in his body anymore.  I put him out in the yard in the sun and I tried bottle feeding him small amounts of formula every two hours but he was really trying to tell me he didn't want it while remaining his ever polite self.  (By the way I just now went out and looked up in the sky and the clouds were covering up the star.  But he had made sure I would see it.)  He had a good morning and occasionally held his head up and sniffed the air.  He later found shade under the bamboo next to the fence. Around noon I gave him a bath and then barricaded him in the kitchen so he wouldn't get lost and before I left to go to an appointment with my lawyer I sat beside him and told him he could go ahead and die while I was gone if he wanted to.  I told him my other dogs who have crossed over would be waiting for him and I listed all their names - twice, for good measure.  I told him what a joy he had been and thanked him for everything and asked him to forgive me for the times I was short with him and for not realizing he had probably been sick with kidney disease (at least I think that's what it was). was gone five hours.  I prayed the whole time I was gone that he would die naturally and practiced my breathing exercise to calm myself down.  When we got home he had died and I think just.  His body was still very warm - even the fluid that had escaped from his mouth was warm.  I told my son his spirit was just now leaving the house and we both kissed him and told him how much we loved him.  I now have him wrapped in a satin sheet on a table on the patio with candles lit beside him.  It just so happens the gardener's day is tomorrow._