Check out my reaction to anonymous internet commenters on news stories in my new essay on Quail Bell Magazine
http://www.quailbellmagazine.com/3/post/2014/04/essay-on-being-a-scary-man-lady-with-a-fat-ass.html
(hey that’s me!)
As always, never ending thanks to Silver Persinger for being an amazing activist and documenting so much of public process in Richmond.
2014 April 9 – Special Meeting of Land Use To Consider Monroe Park Bids – Richmond City Council – Richmond, Virginia from Silver Persinger on Vimeo.
Update!! Easter Sunday – protest Venture Richmond, a baseball stadium in Shockoe Bottom, and Monroe Park Lease at Robert E. Lee statue at Monument and Allen in front of Alice Massie’s house from 1-5pm Please Share!!! Spread the word and bring signs and banners and noisemakers!!!! #rvacouncil #monroepark #venturerichmond #nostadium #shockoebottom #rva #foodnotbombs #rvafoodnotbombs #anarchist #radical #wingnut #vulturerichmond
This is the text of the speech I will be delivering on 4/14/14 at City Council during the public comments period. Below the speech are 2 amazing songs and information on the May Day Parade and Celebration in Monroe Park!!!
Sign made by Sarah Boggs for City Council Meeting
In 2013 the City of Richmond spent 11 million dollars to build a training camp for the racist football team from D.C. That racist team is the 3rd richest of all the teams in the NFL. But the City of Richmond has to pay them half a million dollars a year to practice here for 8 weeks. That comes to a total of 4 million dollars over the course of the 8 year contract. The rest of the year the facility remains vacant.
The training camp space can and ought to be used as a homeless shelter and resource center for the poor- who make up 27% of Richmond residents. The locker rooms and other aspects of the facilities make the training camp a huge improvement on existing options for the homeless.
Oh – and speaking of the homeless, they are facing the very real threat of being evicted from Monroe Park by the Monroe Park Conservancy if City Council approves this bogus lease tonight.
I have to ask- what kind of people spend 15 million dollars on a racist football team that is already the 3rd richest in the league, but would rather put at further risk some of our most vulnerable residents in order to not spend 3 million more on Monroe Park? What kind of people?
If the City of Richmond funded the entirety of the Monroe Park Renovations that would only be 2/5 of the amount being spent on that racist football team.
If City Council chooses to pass the leasing of a public park, which is an invaluable resource to low income residents, to a private entity made up of the rich and powerful who which to silence and make invisible the homeless, City Council is engaging in violence, classism, and morally reprehensible behavior.
If City Council supports the racist football team from D.C., Council is disgusting and oppressive. The Washington D.C. City Council voted in 2013 to condemn the racist name, and Richmond City Council needs to as well.
If you support the construction of an unnecessary baseball stadium on historic slave market grounds, you need to step back and educate yourself on racism. If you think the public should fund the baseball stadium spending over 80 million dollars before taking care of our schools and parks you are ethically bankrupt and have no business acting as a leader in this region. Funding the entirety of the Monroe Park Renovations without leasing the park would cost 1/13 of what the stadium is projected to cost.
As my friend Gary Llama pointed out, this City government is acting like an irresponsible person with a credit card who spends money on fun frivelous things like eating out, vacations, and videogames, while ignoring their rent and utility bills and debts. This behavior is fiscally irresponsible and morally reprehensible and I urge you to change your ways.
Our public schools are literally falling down on and around our students. In Sunday’s paper Mayor Jones is quoted saying, “When that community re-gentrification takes place, thats when schools really start turning around”.
April 13, 2014 Richmond Times Dispatch
So according to the Mayor, when low income and people of color are forced out of a community by upper middle class white people the schools get better. He thinks that the violence of displacement is necessary to improve schools. I bet if the Mayor and City Council did not spend public funds on baseball, football, and tax breaks for Vulture Richmond there might be money for our schools and parks.
I am telling you, we will not go quietly. Scratch that, we will not go. The neoliberal direction of this administration is creating a resistance among the people, and we will not go, we shall not be moved.
We Shall Not Be Moved by Pete Seeger – some get pumped music for the resistance. Because Resistance is fun – which is also why you should join the fight to Keep Monroe Park Open and Free at the annual May Day Celebration and Parade! Info Below!!
Update on May Day from the meeting last night –
May day parade will meet at 2pm on Thursday May 1st in Clay abner park.
The parade will leave the park around 2:30 and march to Monroe Park.
Getting to Monroe Park by 4 at the latest. In Monroe Park there will be a potluck cookout, speakers, workshops and bands as we hold down the park until dark.
We want May Day to be fun, invigorating, and anti- stadium, anti-privatization of Monroe Park, and in support of Fast Food workers and everyone fighting for a Living Wage.
So make your own signs and banners and puppets and parade floats and costumes and bring a dish to share!
All Saints Theater will be organizing their puppets with support and determining the parade route.
Day of, we will need bike marshalls, medics, legal observers, copwatchers, and more!
And another of my favorite resistance songs- Which Side Are You On by Rebel Diaz!
This is the first power point I have put together in probably a decade.
I made it because I wanted to make a presentation to the Land Use Committee on my bid for Monroe Park. However, they are not giving me equal treatment to Alice Massie/ the Monroe Park Conservancy.
It looks like I will not be able to present to them.
But I hope others will find this a useful tool, tying together some pieces around Richmond that are connected and that can teach us lessons on what not to do with Monroe Park.
If you would like me to come to your school, organization, neighborhood group or religious group to present the powerpoint I would be more than happy to. It is much more comprehensive with narration. And I would welcome a question/answer period at the end as well.
Please be in touch at mokarnage @gmail.com
I was interviewed on March 27th on WRIR’s Open Source Program.
If you missed the airing on Friday, you can go online for the next week or so and listen to the show on their Tunein player.
http://wrir.org/tunein/
I will try to post the permanent link once that becomes available.
The interview is about Monroe Park and the bid I submitted on the park Lease, essentially in protest of the concept of privatizing our public parks.
Background articles on the issue at http://www.wingnutrva.org
Thinking about going to a City Council meeting? Nervous about what to expect?
Here is my guide for surviving these sorts of meetings with your mental and physical health in mind!
Op-ed on the Resistance now online at Quail Bell Magazine!
There has been a lot going on in Richmond for the past months. 2014 is turning out to be a pivotal year for this City. A year where everything is on the line. Right now, on the precipice of multiple changes, I’m taking a look into my crystal ball to see what the future may hold. Like any prediction, this is no static vision. Things don’t have to turn out like what I’m seeing.
What happens if a development in Shockoe Bottom is created using 80 million of public funds to build a ball park in a historic site? What happens if Monroe Park is privatized and attempts are made to kick Food Not Bombs and the homeless out? What happens if our schools and children continue to suffer because Vulture Richmond gets tax breaks they don’t deserve?
Well, what I’m seeing is:
The Resistance is what will happen.
The Resistance won’t be a formal organization, but a banner taken up by dozens, hundreds, thousands, who are so sick of living in a place where the few rule the many, where money speaks louder than our voices, and where there is more oppression daily.
The Resistance won’t stick to one set of tactics, but will embrace a true diversity of tactics to liberate Richmond from the oppressive bad decisions brought about by Mayor Jones, City Council, Vulture Richmond, and the Monroe Park Advisory Council – among others.
I’m seeing members of the Resistance outside of the houses of members of City Council, Monroe Park Advisory Council, Vulture Richmond, Looting RVA, local Developers and more, holding up boom boxes John Cusack style, blasting “No where to run to baby, no where to hide” by Martha and the Vandellas . Because, as we all know from campaigns like Stop Huntington Animal Cruelty – the enemies have faces, names, and addresses. Any good resistance will be sure to gather this intel, and use it appropriately, to bring to the protests to the people responsible for the decisions privatizing our City.
Check out my new article about the proposed privatization of Monroe Park being pushed by Richmond’ elites!
Don’t Privatize Monroe Park
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Mo Karnage 
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