Letter to editor: Homeless Issue in Gay Mecca
Ezekiel Krahlin
(e-mailed to B.A.R., Bay Area Times, and Spectrum)
January 12, 2003
Dear Editor:
While some S.F. residents are familiar with my
radical proposal (born of outrage) to declare Dec.
25 "National Burn a Homeless Shopping Cart Day",
I'd like to share my further observations
regarding the homeless over these past several
years; and some novel ideas as to how we can
reclaim our once-friendly, once-safe, once-fun
Castro neighborhood. I apologize for the length,
but the truth must be said; and cannot be said in
two or three brief paragraphs. For this reason, I
hope your newspaper makes an exception to my
message, and prints the entire piece: perhaps not
as a regular letter, but as an opinion piece by a
devoted local queer activist of many years
(credentials provided at my website for all to
view: www.gay-bible.org). Here goes:
Never forget "Bloody Mary Halloween", my name for
the horrendous gay bashings and attacks that
occurred during our high holy celebration, here in
the Castro, this past Oct. 31. We must be armed
and ready by Halloween next year, to defend
ourselves from another bloodbath, that may
possibly prove much worse, considering the rise of
anti-gay hatred across our country, states, and
cities.
Surely, we can find a better way to allow our
sexual-minority poor and houseless to filter
through, without having to suffer an onslaught of
homophobic barbarians for each one we rescue! We
certainly cannot afford, as a people in desperate
political straits, to take on the housekeeping
issues of insane adults in mental diapers...most
of whom are heterosexual and homophobic, and
violent.
Some are dangerous ex-convicts, what with the
corruption of California's prison system, which
now releases more aggressive felons onto our
streets, homeless and unsupervised. Imagine that:
the Castro under siege by at least a dozen loose
cannons, roaming our queer 'hood all day and
night...observing who comes and goes, types of
doors and windows and locks and visitors on
people's homes and apartments...all without any
kind of security for the many residents and
tourists who come to our once-safe neighborhood.
Into whose grubby hand did some bleeding heart
cast loose change or dollars, here in the Castro,
today...not realizing that some of these sidewalk
denizens are rapists, bashers, and killers? To
hand them cash or food or anything else (including
a kind word), is to encourage them to entrench
themselves into our gay streets...and is rewarding
them for bad (anti-gay) behavior, along with other
psychotic issues. Thus, we queers are at danger in
our own communities, by this vagrant street
culture...and the willingness of "gay-friendly"
heteros to look the other way, as if nothing were
happening to harm us queers.
So now we have homeless adults and
youngsters--mostly heterosexual--who dine at
mostly-homophobic free-meal churches. They are
rewarded for agreeing with whatever dogma is
spewed at them, by a free meal, candy, shelter, or
other desireable handouts. They are then sent back
on our gay streets daily, terrorizing our people
to stay home after dark, so the drug dealing can
take over, and the mugging, and the burglarizing,
etc. Screaming up and down our streets late at
night is part of their strategy...in using the
less intelligent among the homeless as drones or
robots to do their evil bidding. Unlimited free
mercenaries for the enemy...how clever!
KSFO talk radio is the main propaganda node for
the Religious Reich, in San Francisco. For about a
decade now, one Michael Savage has built up quite
a fan club from his hate mongering against us
queers at least several times a day, day in day
out. Homeless people listen to radio a lot, and
Mr. Savage is quite popular. So he has contributed
in a big way to the upsurge we see among the
homeless, of anti-gay attitudes...right here in
our Gay Mecca, and even in its rheumatic heart,
"the Castro". But Savage ain't the ONLY homophobe
on that station! How did arses like Rush Limbaugh
and "Dr." Laura wind up in San Francisco? Perhaps
(I surmise) with the generous support and funding
of Christian groups here in our own Bay Area.
Then we have some very intelligent ex-cons moving
into our turf, starting to organize other, dumber
and/or vulnerable homeless, to take over the turf,
with a drug/sex ring. Thus, we see where some
folks with roofs over their heads, and money to
burn, are the weakest link to the security of our
neighborhood. (Hmmmm, what can we do about this,
without turning this into sophisticated turf wars?
Got me!)
I was homeless; I have homeless friends. And I can
assure you, that most decent homeless do not even
reveal their status, are clean, and well
behaved...and do not push around junk-filled
shopping carts. We do not have the capacity (even
if we had the desire) to take into our queer
streets and homes every wet-brained vagrant that
should stumble onto our Yellow Brick Road. You
hetero thugs have so many other places that are
exclusively straight...that your intrusion into
our world can only be taken as enemy fire,
especially in light of this past Halloween in the
Castro.
I, for one, refuse to feed the Beast that lurks in
any one of these foul-minded hetero pervert street
thugs! Don't be kind to these monsters; they'll
only attack you once they're strong enough. Heck,
some attack by night, and beg by day...accepting
those generous handouts from visitors from other
parts of the city, as well as from tourists from a
greater distance. They (tourists) can return to their
safe, quiet neighborhoods whenever they want...but we
who live in the Castro are under siege by hetero
skanks that just LOVE all this chaos and
intimidation they're able to stir up!
We concerned community residents and visitors,
need to make a firm statement to the local liquor
stores (and any other shops selling alcohol), to
exercise their right to refuse service to
anyone...by denying these creeps the purchase of
any alcoholic beverage. I would take it further:
all these shops should exclusively REFUSE SERVICE
to them, period. No food, no magazines, no
deoderant, no nothing. They need to feel very
unwelcome, as part of the strategy to make our
streets free of them, finally. Any shops in the
area that do not abide by this necessary rule (to
recreate a safe 'hood), must be interpreted as
hostile towards sexual minorities...for they are
encouraging street thugs to hang out, and continue
to terrorize queers. Surely, no business is so
hard up that it can't afford to survive without
the financial trickles from the houseless.
We need to approach these shops in this matter...
and any that refuse to abide, ought to be
boycotted! (SHOW them this letter, so they won't
write you off as a simple crank.) We can station
observers of these stores, who'll snap photos of
any street thug seen purchasing something. This
will be the evidence to bring to the store
proprietor in question.
In the long run, we'll need to occupy the hot
spots of our neighborhood...playgrounds, major
street corners, and that long strip of sidewalk in
front of Safeway (just east of Church Street).
Social groups, perhaps, or some sort of
tourist/guardians...and we can have queer-oriented
street entertainment: musicians, crafts, etc.
(Great boost to tourism: the only queer
neighborhood in the US with actual queer--not
hetero--live entertainment.) At night, we can have
volunteers patrol the streets for safety, and to
keep things quiet...as noise pollution is way out
of hand after dark, along Market Street here in
the Castro.
We also need to show our appreciation to the
police who are risking their lives in order to
protect us, and make our neighborhood safe once
more. I, for one, applaud the presence and devoted
service by our local beat cops, Officer Warner and
Sergeant Limbert (who recently just moved into the
Castro, as a clear demonstration of solidarity
with our community). And they are quite correct
when they say that the community needs to do more,
as the cops cannot on their own, right all wrongs.
Peer pressure as displayed by residents and
regular visitors will go a long way towards
turning the tables. In a very real sense, we must
all be narcs against hard drug abuse, in order to
scare away the bogeymen who care not one whit, for
our neighborhood or civil rights.
We certainly need to get to know each other a lot
better, and work very rapidly at removing our own
walls of bigotry within our Queer Family: racism,
classism, misogyny, etc., etc. Else there won't be
enough of us united to this Common & Noble Cause.
Sincerely,
Ezekiel J. Krahlin
Sheriff of Castro Street
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This is message #4301.
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