Notes from the May 2007 LPN Meeting

the tone of this entry came close to sounding ultra self-righteous, comparing Lower Polk Neighbors to organized crime based on the events of the may meeting. when the words started to form on the page i began to doubt if taking back a certain process of criminalization (a process central to LPN's mission statement) and simply reversing it was the effective action i wanted. everything that lower polk neighbors does hinges on the ability to create criminality and then project it on whoever gets in their way, it seems appropriate to interrupt this process of how a crime is determined and to look at how it is employed by people in power to obscure the centralized allocation of resources. the comparison to organized crime was furthered hammered home because of the prevalence of activity that appeared to be happening concerning bars at the last meeting-- there were so many businessmen, cops and politicians making a fuss about who can sell alcohol where, when, why and to whom that it automatically reminded me of the times of prohibition. this meeting also followed a recent experiment with having a happy hour meeting to benefit those who work when the monthly meetings are regularly scheduled. the pinnacle of this mob moment culminated with the late arrival of culture warrior entrepreneurial bar owners don alan and steven blackie.

hmmm, my description kind of already sounds too glamorous, and this is a problem for me. the media produces glamorous images of organized crime, very similar to the way lower polk neighbors perpetuates the idea of so-called "quality of life" crimes. this criminal imagery becomes an inflamed frenzy during the police reports, as members perform fiery ecstatic law-and-order outrage before captain dillon. these stories exist for captain dillon's benefit as a form of job security. i've always found glamorous images of crime can be seductive, but at the same time i worry that this glamour can be used to necessitate and validate the state, just as lower polk neighbors burns the midnight oil conspiring to combat a "criminalized" street culture.

another way to misinterpret my "organized crime" description of lower polk neighbors is that i'm describing the group as operating outside of US colonialism in some rogue capacity-- i meant the opposite: US colonialism is lower polk neighbors. in casting the entire US colonial state as "criminal," as many activists do, i run the risk of implicating another higher "anarchist state" that these oppressors exist contrary to. this causes me anxiety because the ways i've been introduced to this proposed "anarchist state" is as a vision that unfortunately overlaps the US colonial state, with both "criminalizing" the other.

an obstacle i've noticed frequently is how groups chose to respond to the state's designation of race, as anarchist groups in an attempt to repair the damage of colonialism try to create "safe" spaces. histories of how racial categories were largely devised during colonialism in order to promote its expansion are not interrogated in the process of organizing these "safe" spaces. i've heard of recent cases of campaigns seeking to combat white supremacy unable to unpack the baggage of patriarchy largely inherited through colonial conditioning-- the result is that in such "safe" spaces, queer and trans folks of color are not seen as fit to challenge white supremacy.

the arbitrary terms of what a community of color looks like becomes the subject of intense debate at lower polk neighbors meetings. at the april 2007 meeting, during captain dillon's police report lower polk neighbors criminalized individuals they were able to visually identify as "hondurans," and expressed "concern" over whether an arrest would lead to deportation. members hoped that the "hondurans" would make it to outreach organizations. in handcuffs, maybe? citizenship is a classification every lower polk neighbors member earns through paying dues and contesting the citizenship of persons not even in the meeting room. after working on this lower polk gentrification campaign for about four years now, i strongly believe that this language of citizen legitimacy also permeates the activist community. why has the work of gay shame not been successful in stimulating the interest of others in the direct action community? like lower polk neighbors, does the activist community feel assured that those seriously affected by the continuing displacement in the tenderloin can always be salvaged by the non profit industrial complex? this idea of legitimate struggles would form another wall around this proposed "anarchist state," criminalizing the most marginal.

my impulse to characterize lower polk neighbors as an organized crime syndicate was made difficult by my reaction to US citizenship being made an explicit feature of this month's may day march for immigration rights. sure i see people wanting to smash the state, but how many are documented US citizens? the paradox of citizenship privilege has anti-authoritarians waving american flags, although probably not as many as the protest last year. from what i gather the point with the american flags at these protests is to say either/both two things: 1) we're the citizens and you're not or more often 2) we're citizens just like you. i'm not clear on how to reconcile compromise and sabotage.

these are numerous examples of getting caught up in the state's terms, taking them for granted and confusing them with the terms of an anti-authoritarian agenda. often immigration activists reclaim the words "homeland security" with an illustration of male native american warriors on horseback as a anti-colonial critique. this challenge to US power implies the moral enforcement of another perhaps higher universal moral "law," to which the materialist principles of some social change activists always adhere; this blog entry struggles to avoid such implications of any form of law-and-order state, or that mary mortgages is some sort of ideal dream-scenario anarchist "citizen." it feels like during the process of connecting struggles-- as gay shame often attempts, and this blog entry also attempts-- that a consensus emerges. does this suggest some "anarchist law"?

throwing away my convenient organized crime metaphor, how do i talk about business owners using lower polk neighbors to muscle their competition? don alan owns the hemlock tavern and steve blackie owns the vertigo and lush lounge. for more details about how these former queer bars, please refer to gay shame's map of polk street gentrification. the hemlock recieved a noise complaint, but it was actually space gallery next door that had started having live music during its openings. the gallery also sold $1 sake shots, and steve blackie was upset that the alcohol proof of that sake was way more intense than most hard liquor. to make matters worse, space gallery was apparently going to apply for a permit to stay open after 2! what gives? how is it, steven moaned, that an "art gallery" can have music and sell liquor? they aren't a bar! how dare they! so now apparently the space gallery must come make peace with LPN to run their business how they want. this discussion caused some controversy amongst members of the room, because john malloy's polk corridor business association meets at space gallery. LPN has a penchant for harassing people off the street-- steven blackie as a manner of introducing himself bragged that when he bought reflections and turned it into vertigo that he "wanted to change the fabric of the neighborhood." this is consistent with blackie's track record, a very vocal transphobe, who ten years ago bought polk gulch at the corner of post and turned it into lush lounge. steve blackie brought an end to the neighborhood tradition of drag performances there, wanting the bar to cater to "metrosexuals."

also on the bar tip, people from savethebarleycorn.org paid another visit to acquire support in preventing the displacement of the john barleycorn, a 40-year old neighborhood drinking establishment at california and larkin on nob hill. three months ago i described their first ironic visit to anti-gay-bar lower polk neighbors where they shared their dilemma of having to negotiate with their new landlord luisa hansen. what's even more ironic is hearing linda refer to the barleycorn as "a community resource. we have used the same efforts we used in nob hill neighbors." oh, did i forget to mention that jeanne powell and our old friend linda were previously in nob hill neighbors? it was noted that, "as a matter of fact, [the barleycorn] keeps the neighborhood fairly safe." if one bar on nob hill can be called a community resource, what do you call the 5 recently gentrified bars on polk street that had been there for decades? the representative from the barleycorn brought a red t-shirt with him that had been printed up for the bar's river rafting trip and shook it around when he said "luisa hansen." the disparity between the amount of resources that have been piled up to save the barleycorn vs. what people could mobilize for the gay hustler bar lower polk neighbors drove out of the neighborhood is pretty immense. not that i personally prefer these tactics, but would the rendezvous have been supplanted by lofts and a church if they had the ability to do things like gather 25,000 signatures, launch a website and get willie brown to try to bring luisa to the bargaining table? lower polk neighbors unanimously pledged to support the barleycorn staying where they are. it may have been a historical moment, because i think this was the first time i ever witnessed lower polk neighbors actually voting.

of course organized crime resonated the most for me when the barleycorn mentioned hiring willie brown as a negotiator. it reminded me of the big discrimination scapegoating hullabaloo around castro bar badlands, where willie brown also stepped up to mediate between les natali and 86'd black male complainants. other businesses in the generally hostile body fascist castro district had scapegoated badlands for years as the de facto most fucked up place, and the largely non-profit pickets organized to hold badlands accountable did nothing to challenge this overwhelmingly obvious "community-wide" trend. the best part of willie brown's mediation was that after numerous headlines in local media the settlement of the mediation was kept secret. most mob-like of all is how this diversity publicity stunt has helped the careers of its organizers. a stupid controversy over the exclusion of people of color from the list of nominees for grand marshall for this year's pride parade ended with the spot being filled with anti-badlands organizer john newsome. is willie brown the godfather? oh wait, i was going to try to avoid doing that.

lastly for this month's blog entry, also contributing to the "organized crime" (for lack of a better word) feel of the meeting, so-called "sex worker advocacy" non-profit SAGE (S.tanding A.gaginst G.lobal E.xploitation) shed light through a presentation that looked like something they recycled from what they do for their funders on their very lucrative operation of working with federal agents to "rescue" (see "reverse-trafficking") immigrants in massage parlors back to their original country. that repeatedly self-applauded that they get results for all the bodies they're able to expedite, and that this has their funders jumping up and down in their seats to give them more money. yay! meeting facilitator david chiu then brought in captain dillon's police report to follow SAGE's recycled presentation on the agenda to address the general rise of hooker fervor in the room. when pumped for details regarding the SFPD's prostitution abatement strategy, captain dillon explained that, "our female cops work undercover and are extremely attractive, often more attractive than the women working the street and get more johns because we clean them up-- they're significantly cleaner." dillon also got nostalgic: "in the old days it was a lot easier. me and the boys would go out with a van and we used to throw them all in the van. if you're dressed like a prostitute, in the van." someone was upset why this ritual had been discontinued and dillon responded that,"it's a constitutional issue. if you would like to have that..." dillon trailed off suspiciously, as if to leave a gentle suggestion for concerned citizens in the room to fill in the blank.