Live from City Hall (July 31st), the day the Mission’s and Hunters Point’s future and ultimately the City’s future was being discussed, dis-respected, fought for and voted on. I’m currently in the room down stairs watching the community, the “experts” and the politicians debate about the health issues at the Lennar site. It’s a beautiful site back here. In front of me I see nothing but beautiful healthy children who came in full force with the Nation of Islam of San Francisco, dressed in sharp suits smiling, sleeping, reading and glowing. In front of them, their mothers and fathers quietly sit waiting to hear the testimony and the final vote on whether Lennar should halt the development until the issue is resolved of whether toxic materials are being blown into the lungs of the community.

An hour ago mixed into the mostly Black families here, were a diverse groupings of long term Mission residents and families, students and long time social justice activists who may not have been dressed as sharp but were just as passionate about another issue for our communities in the Mission: the future of the Kelly More site on the corner of Mission and Cesar Chavez.

Yesterday I sat in a meeting with some heavyweights in the City, State and Nation in terms of people power and justice. People like Minister Christopher Muhammad from the SF Nation of Islam, J.T. the bigga figga, who is a nation wide respected hip artist and valued community member coming out of the Fillmore and other folks from bad ass groups like POWER, HOMEY, UNITED PLAYAZ and PODER. Together communities from the Mission, Fillmore, Excelsior, South of Market, Hunter’s Point and Tenderloin, plus folks dedicated to social justice from around the city got together to discuss a very serious issue that’s cracking down on our communities: the recent City Attorney sponsored gang injunctions. The first were issued on the “Oakdale Mob”, then another “gang” in the Moe and last in on 24th Street against the Noreteno “gang” in the Mission. Each group flushed out their issues and shared ways of people are working on them. After two hours we all agreed that we faced the same issues: gentrification, gang injunctions, education, violence and economic development, and that these are the clearest fruits from a tree rooted in racism, poverty and exploitation.

Another thing we clearly all agreed upon is upon is the link between the recent gang injunctions and gentrification in our neighborhoods. People said things like, “they are trying to clear us out so rich whites folks can come in and set up shop.” And “Oakdale is the closest to the Lennar sites that’s why they put that injunction up there.” “The next spots in between 16th and 20th on Mission to get rid of the Surenos, after they crack down on 24”, “next they coming after Sunnydale as they start redoing the projects up there too and hooking up the Caltrains project and the T line”.

At the meeting a very comprehensive plan to curb violence and create police accountability to the community was introduced, but according to people who worked very hard to craft it, Newsome sidestepped it and supported the prison/police rout.

At the end of the meeting we began to discuss this much needed and missing link between bringing together Brown, Black and other oppressed communities and all allies who value diversity and want to live in harmony with justice and equality in our city.

We talked about putting together a conference type of gathering which brings together these communities which have been, are currently and will always be under attack by forces which puts profits before people. After some hugs and pounds, I jumped back on my bike up Valencia with strong feelings of hope in my heart. It’s these same feelings that that I have sitting here behind all these beautiful children and their parents waiting to hear the out come of whether we can shut the dirty and corrupted Lennar down.

Today we lost a battle in the Mission. Yuppies, the upper middle class, the real estate moguls and their lawyers, the planning commission, the new five year San Francisco resident who claim to have more rights to the city than people who have been there their whole lives, and the sell outs will get their luxury condos.

The Supervisors voted 6-5 in favor of the project. Geraldo Sandavol who “represents” district 11, a neighborhood in desperate need of affordable family housing, and Jake McGoldrick who has constantly identified him- self with civil rights issues and prided himself in connections with Spanish speaking people, both voted for the project.

Both had fundraisers thrown for them by the developer that wants to build luxury condos at a site our people desperately need for affordable housing. We knew the other conservative supervisors were going to vote yes for it.

Today, affordable family housing that people born and raised in the Mission, in the Point etc would be able to live in, has been lost. Amongst the sound of these beautiful children, the sounds from the passionate testimony of people crying out in the spirit of people like Martin Luther King about the deaths, the poisons, the injustice, the racism and the gentrification echo out of the television. I don’t know how the supervisors will vote. Based upon how they have voted around the Cesar Chavez site it doesn’t look good. But have we lost?

Power rooted deep in our people’s spirits was and is in these hall ways, in the chambers and this room. We will win when all the parents who have lost children to the Asthma on Hill coming to together with all the parents whose children have been poisoned by lead in Mission.

We win when we come to link the struggles of dis-placement that has torched us from Fillmoe in the 60’s, Manilla and China Town in the 70’s, the Mission and Hunters Point in the present. We win when our communities that are losing young people to murder and prisons come together. We will win if we stand unified together to fight. The potential is here, it always has been.

Our children deserve the best. Not more than or less then the next, but the best. These beautiful children in front of me and all the children of Chinatown, the Sunset, Excelsior, Viz Valley, Bernal Heights, the Mission, Bay-View, Tenderloin, etc, all the children, regardless of skin color and neighborhood, whose future is being sacrificed by a system which puts profits before their future need for us, their parents, the elders, their communities to come together, are unified and ready to fight.

We share the same struggles. Our families are feeling the same pain. The same forces causing this chaos and harm are touching us all. Like our past our future is so inter linked. When the people who are driven by justice and love, no money or vote can stop us. It never has and never will.

Power to the People.

Giulio Sorro is a lifetime Bernal Heights resident who is a humanites High School teacher at June Jordan in San Francisco