Holiday Present

My mom told me she’s a lesbian
and it rained for a week,

not because she told me she’s a lesbian
but because sometimes it just rains like that

in December, when families get together
around nine shining candles or one electrified tree

or whatever they light at the ecstatic dance solstice celebration
at Muir Woods, because it’s holiday time in the Bay

and my mom gives me a present
wrapped in a question:

Do you want to meet her?

Do you think the world is going to end in 2012?

I look over at the young Italian woman who asked the question, thinking she’s joking. But by the look in her eyes, I know she’s dead serious. And I can’t say I blame her, given our surroundings.

It’s one thing to dismiss the Mayan apocalypse myth from the safety of a coffeeshop-and-laptop in Oakland, but it’s another thing to hear it standing here on top of the pyramids of Tikal, the heart of the ancient Mayan empire.

It’s December 2011 – exactly one year before my boy Ronnie keeps telling me the Mayan calendar is going to run out and life as we know it will cease to exist (Yo, that shit is real, son! I’m telling you!) - and I find myself deep in the jungle of northern Guatemala.

Taxes are sexy.

Yeah, I said it. I know that most times you hear about taxes – from Obama to the latest Tea Party wingnut to your local city council bureaucrat – that conversation is boring, it’s policy-wonkish, and it’s usually pretty conservative. Well, it’s time to change the debate.

Meet the Millionaire Tax Virgin. This is a man who tells it like it is — taxing rich people to pay for public schools and services is necessary; it’s about justice; and yes, it can be quite the aphrodisiac.

This is a poem for Oakland, for the fallen brothers, for the fallen trees —
and for the good men in my life.

The Tree Hugger

his skin is brown
limbs long, he is lanky like me
but still: strong arms, thick spine

he is an oak
tree rooted in the Town
find him from Lower Bottoms
to top of the hills
from Berkeley border to Deep East

he is a tree and we
have never spoke,
clapped hands, dapped it up

i barely look him in the eye

I remember the first time I saw a Confederate flag in Wisconsin.

It was my sophomore year at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and I was driving with my friend Kevin to go see The Roots in Milwaukee. Complaining how we needed to drive an hour and a half just to see a decent hip-hop show, Kevin told me to speed it up. I moved into the fast lane, casually glancing at the truck ahead of us — and there it was. Blazing brightly at us from the bumper of an old Chevy pickup truck, there shined the Confederacy’s version of red, white, and blue.

I couldn’t believe it. I’d seen the Confederate flag before — growing up in DC, I played soccer in Virginia and saw the occasional diagonally-crossed banner on cars along the aptly-named Robert E. Lee Highway. As repulsive as they were, those Virginia flag-wavers could at least pretend to hide behind Southern pride as inspiration.

But this dude driving his pickup truck up here in Wisconsin, what pride was he claiming? Proud to be south of Canada?

A black guy and a Jew, Kevin and I weren’t going to honk and ask for clarification. Both of us already knew the answer. That flag meant – as it always means – white pride. The deadliest pride of them all.

It is election night in Madison, Wis., and I am standing where it all began, in front of the state Capitol here in the heart of America’s rebel dairyland.

Earlier today was the recall election against Gov. Scott Walker, the viciously right-wing governor whose legislative attacks on public workers and unions sparked a grassroots rebellion in early 2011 involving hundreds of thousands of angry Wisconsinites. The Wisconsin uprising, through its occupation of the Capitol and its sheer massive numbers, inspired people across America and beyond to fight for economic justice in bold new ways, paving the way for Occupy Wall Street in the fall.

For me, the movement was as beautiful as it was personal — I’d gone to college in Madison, taught in the Milwaukee public schools, and organized events in Green Bay. Scott Walker was attacking my old teachers, my students, and my friends. But they fought back, and hell, it looked like they – we! – might actually turn the tide against decades of corporate rule. Standing here outside the Capitol on election day, amidst the glorious Solidarity Singers leading 1,000 people in rousing versions of “Eyes on the Prize” and “Union Maid,” the smell of hope was strong in the summer air.

And then the results came in.

I wake up to the sound of helicopters. Living in Oakland, the city of beautiful rebellion and tragic violence, I’ve long since learned to recognize the distant buzz of police choppers, but I usually don’t hear it before 8 am. Then I remember: Today is May Day! The revolution is starting early today!

Okay, maybe not the revolution, but like activists across the country, I looked forward to this May Day as a chance to re-energize and unite the diverse working-class movement now called the 99%.

I spend the day on the streets of Oakland, marching with over 5,000 people – from Salvadoran immigrants to striking nurses, from white-haired professors to black-clad anarchists, some of whom did attempt to storm the barricades and received a dose of tear gas in response. For the most part, though, May Day in Oakland is less an insurrection and more a festival of solidarity, full of music, street theater, and an immigrant-led march that reminded everyone that border walls and racial profiling have no place on International Workers Day — or any day.

Despite the hype promised by the helicopters, the events in Oakland get off to a quiet start. Occupy Oakland has put out a call for a general strike, but unlike the 30,000-person strike of last November that shut down much of the city, the early May Day crowd is noticeably smaller, as is its impact. Throughout the morning, several hundred masked activists march through downtown Oakland, at times blockading various banks and government agencies but mostly drifting around aimlessly, unsure where to direct their anger.

By noon, 500 demonstrators converge on Frank Ogawa / Oscar Grant plaza in front of City Hall. They soon move into the streets, where they are met by over 100 cops in full riot gear and – surprise, surprise – we have our first clash of the day. The cops attempt to clear the streets, using flash grenades and arresting the first of what will be 25 people throughout the day. Meanwhile, a group of militants throw paint and small objects at the police lines. As more cops storm in, an Occupy activist on a bullhorn gives loud, contradictory instructions to the crowd: “Stay calm! Fuck the police!”

Why Passover is the Greatest Holiday of All Time

more than the fourth glass of wine
in a family that gets drunk off two

more than the smirk you throw
at your older brother
when you recite the tenth plague,
the killing of the first-born

more than hiding the afikomen
in the exact same spot you found it
fifteen years earlier:
behind the closet door,
under the board games,
stuffed inside a box of tissues so old
it might actually be the same box

Before he became the latest and most-Tweeted victim of racial violence in America’s long, dirty history, Trayvon Martin was just another kid growing up in Miami. He was a high school junior, got A’s and B’s in his classes, planned to go to college and become a flight mechanic. His folks were separated, so he split time between his mom’s house and his dad’s. He was just another kid.

Just another black kid, that is.

To George Zimmerman, the man who shot and killed Trayvon last month in the gated community outside Orlando he shared with Trayvon’s father, Trayvon was suspicious. Up to no good. A walking, talking threat of darkness.

Trayvon’s innocence — what could be more all-American than bringing home a bag of Skittles to watch the NBA All-Star game? — juxtaposed with Zimmerman’s vigilante persona makes this appear a classic case of right and wrong, black and white (or at least light-skinned.) But this is bigger than two individuals. This is bigger than the District Attorney who – unbelievably – still has yet to arrest Zimmerman. This is the reality of institutional racism in 21st century America: a racism that creeps along quietly, strong and determined, touching every corner of American life, until before you know it, it has touched a new corner of American death.

Over the last few months, I have been an active, critical, yet ultimately proud member of Occupy Oakland. Despite the sometimes-questionable tactics and lack of much diversity in this working-class, multi-racial city, I believed that Occupy Oakland was still a young movement and would mature into a more solid political force. Sadly, it seems, we still have a long way to go.

On January 28, Occupy Oakland’s attempt to take over an unused public building turned into yet another painful, predictable street battle with the Oakland Police Department (OPD), with over 400 people arrested by night’s end. The police’s actions were more brutal than ever, from the tear gas and sound grenades to the unlawful mass arrest that has left many of my comrades still in jail as I write this. I stand unequivocally against the severe repression and the increasing police state that we find ourselves in. To my fellow Occupiers, though, it is time that we critically examine our own tactics. If we don’t, Occupy Oakland is going to fizzle out quicker than Rick Perry’s presidential campaign.

The events in Oakland on January 28 indeed occupied national headlines and local jail cells, but they almost certainly lost more supporters to the movement than they gained. Needlessly picking fights with the cops, vandalizing City Hall, and putting our own people in harm’s way is not the path to social and economic justice. It is a losing, incoherent strategy, one that will continue to damage the public’s support for Occupy until our claim that “We are the 99%” becomes a bad joke. Forget whether folks can survive endless police confrontations and court dates. The question now is: Can Occupy Oakland survive itself?