The People's Forum: Donate to the Lebanese Red Cross
Issue #3: The 18th police shooting in Houston this year, Census phone banking, donating to Beirut, Lebanon, mass evictions, community fridges, and so much more. Read it all here.
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Community Updates
TPLF’s group chat is now up and running on Signal. The chat is for anyone who wants to stay up to date on local actions, get to know fellow Houstonians and organizers, and have a safe space for discourse. We talk about movies too! DM us here to be added by your phone number.
Bookclub is now moving forward with August’s book, Another Brooklyn by Jacklyn Woodson. If you want a head start you can begin reading for free here. You can find updates on meeting dates and times on our Instagram.
Houston's community fridges are getting ready to roll out. The initiative is led by Nina Mayers, so you can Instagram DM her here or the project itself in order to get plugged in. If you want to volunteer to help with the food distribution, some of their current needs include food donations as well as researchers, designers, outreach, monetary donations, and recruiting businesses to host fridges (indoor or outdoor). Know a business owner who might be interested? Shoot them a text, this is your call to action!
Immigrant communities are set to be under counted in this year's Census. The Trump administration is cutting back the Census Bureau capacity so we need all the volunteers we can get! Volunteer however much you can to make sure that your communities are counted and get the resources and community power they deserve! Sign-up is here, and the time commitment is flexible.
News Around H-Town
On Aug. 5, an HPD officer shot and killed Ashton Broussard
after cornering him on the back of a parked and empty METRO bus. This killing marks the eighteenth police shooting in Houston so far this year, and the seventh to end in death. The officer, only identified as G. Welch, says he shot out of fear after Broussard pointed a stolen gun at him. Anita Willie, Broussard's mother, shared on Friday that he had many people who loved him, and had [Houston Chronicle]. He had been previously incarcerated by HPD multiple times, both in psychiatric hospitals and the prison industrial complex. Willie says he had been "spiraling" over the past weeks, especially since a friend's fatal overdose. Chief Acevedo says HPD is reviewing the bus footage, which has not been released [Houston Public Media]. This is unsurprising, especially given Acevedo's history of refusing to release body camera footage of police murders [NBC].
Welch had followed Broussard onto an otherwise empty METRO bus, allegedly because he had stolen a nearby security guard's gun. Welch chose to remain there after the driver and two passengers had exited, effectively cornering Broussard. Allegedly, Broussard aimed the stolen gun at the officer, who "feared for his safety" and shot him to death [HPD]. In framing the killing that way, HPD is voicing a common police defense, especially in cases with no witnesses. The department placed Welch on administrative leave, and has not contacted Broussard's family. Rest in power, Ashton Broussard.
Mass evictions continue to loom in Texas and around the country,
since the CARES Act eviction moratorium expired in late July. The Houston Chronicle published a joint letter to the editor from the Houston Tenant's Union and the city's chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. The letter demands a grace period ordinance, which would keep landlords from evicting or fining those who can't pay their rent on time. The organizers point out that a grace period would shift the financial burden from tenants to landlords, who are enriched by exploitative relationships with tenants. They point out that the same Houstonians who struggle with evictions are struggling with healthcare. HTU and DSA pledged to continue to organize tenant power and worker power against the landlords exploiting us. (On a tangential note, the letter was published beneath another letter, this one regarding sex demons. That seems important to point out.)
In a public session on Tuesday, Aug. 4th, Houston City Council listened passively as dozens of Houstonians insisted that they and Mayor Turner vote on renter assistance and halt evictions [Houston Public Media]. An exception to what was a mostly quiet and uninvolved panel, as Houston Public Media noted, was when a caller named Akhil Krishna told City Council to "figure it the fuck out," and Mayor Turner responded that they were banned from publicly commenting again. Krishna told City Council the truth, that "the city is waiting and we're watching your every move."
The day after that meeting, City Council approved Mayor Turner's proposal for a new round of landlord relief. It's more of the same. Houston will relaunch the "rent relief" fund with another $20 million. $0 came from the city budget, $15 million came from federal CARES Act funds, and $5 million came from private foundations [Houston Chronicle]. The city will pay out funds directly to landlords on behalf of residents who qualify. You'll qualify according to a "vulnerability matrix," depending on how much rent you've been able to pay so far since the pandemic began [Houston Press]. This is landlord relief, and there's a catch just like there was in May [Turner's press release]. Renters' eligibility depends on whether landlords agree to a set list of stipulations. That list includes a temporary eviction freeze, waived late fees, and waived interest. If landlords don't agree, they can't apply, which disqualifies their tenants from applying too. Last time around, the money ran out in approxamately two hours [KPRC]. Before you applaud Mayor Turner and City Council for not completely ignoring their constituents, know this landlord relief program is not a panacea.
The U.S. Census Bureau has cut short the census deadline,
which jeopardizes a decade's worth of funding for highways, early childhood programs, and so on [Houston Public Media]. On August 3rd, the bureau announced that the count will end on Sep. 30 instead of Oct. 31. Census organizers point out that in Texas this will result in significant undercounting of low-income and Latinx Texans. While the president's administration failed in their attempt to add the "citizenship question" to the census, DHS and ICE have succeeded at discouraging 30% of adults in immigrant families from trusting and participating with the Census Bureau [Urban Institute].
Texas has gained 3.8 million new residents since the 2010 census, of which Latinx Texans represent over half [Texas Tribune]. Yet, Texas has earmarked zero dollars toward census outreach, while other comparable states are committing millions. Further, all but one of our counties are behind in the number of responses they should have by this point in the process. This year's census is occurring under unprecedented times, and the anxieties surrounding a tightened census schedule will risk the participation of lower income earners with less social power.
This tactic, coupled with the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on Latinx communities, means the census is even more likely to undercount Texans. This targeted hostility towards immigrant Latinx communities ultimately serves to undermine legitimacy of oppressed groups. Census participation has a positive relationship to congressional representation and city planning (school sites, grocery stores, et cetera), and $900 billion in federal funding to the states. The census is a financial and informatic tool for building the next decade of Texans' daily life, and it's being sabotaged.
Donate! Donate! Donate!
Looking for an opportunity to contribute to mutual aid in Houston? Help our neighbors install open-access community fridges in Alief by donating here! And if you're interested in working long-term, join the Houston community fridge campaign (see Community Updates)! You can contact them via Instagram.
An explosion in Beirut, Lebanon's port has left much of the city devastated. You can donate to the Lebanese Red Cross (LRC) by downloading the app here. The LRC is an independent organization and 93% of all donated funds directly goes to humanitarian aid and their work. For more trusted places to donate to in support, you can visit this website.
Latinas Rising is a collective of social workers, educators, and activists committed to seeing Latina women thriving and free. Latinas Rising has supported the People's Liberation Front by supplying a premium Zoom account, with encryption and unlimited calls. We're asking community members to make a meaningful contribution to their organization at whatever level you're able.
Revolutionary Recs
Houston's very own FUSKA, a ska punk band, released a new album, Sucia Socidedad, on Friday along with a music video for their single "Pinche Puerco," which in English is "Dirty Pigs." You can stream it on iTunes or purchase the digital album here.
Pleaides Magazine's summer issue features a special Korean American Women Poets folio, guest edited by poet and translator EJ Koh. “Women of the Korean diaspora, faced with boundaries of language, history, geography, as well as racism and xenophobia, have used poetry and translation on their own terms... Out comes a necessary imagining of a future with the presence of being for Korean women everywhere.” Previous as well as the current issue can be found here.
Arca uses her album KiCk i to thrust herself gleefully into the pop side of chaos electronic music. It's sexy, glitchy, and ungovernable. Who else can rhyme "nonbinaree" with "teeheehee"? Stream it wherever, or start with the feverish music video for "Mequetrefe."
Hồ Chí Minh's essay "The Path Which Led Me to Leninism" discusses the value of Leninism as a framework that applies Marxism to the age of Imperialism. Bác Hồoffers a valuable and beautifully written articulation of the value of Leninism to the colonized people of the world.