To Big Issue street newspaper: by Jennafer Waggoner (NASNA) FWD
Tom Boland (wgcp@earthlink.net)
Mon, 26 Jan 1998 21:39:55 -0800 (PST)
FWD via Robert Norse at: "Bathrobespierre"<norse@netcom.com>
JENNAFER WAGGONER'S LETTER TO THE BIG ISSUE
Here is a buffed-up version of JW's letter to TBI, reprinted with her
permission. Anyone has permission to publish it or parts of it.
Making Change... a community newspaper empowering the poor and unhoused
with an income and a voice...
1010 South Flower, Suite 401, Los Angeles, CA 90015 (213) 746-6511 fax
(213) 746-4967
P.O. Box 3622, Santa Monica, CA 90408 (310) 289-7446 e-mail
refugee@gte.net
January 14, 1998
John Bird
The Big Issue
Fleet House, 57 - 61 Clarkenwall Road
Farringdon, London EC1M5NP
Dear John,
This is actually my first dear John letter! I do not wish to
keep a letter writing bout back and forth about street paper philosophy.
That is not my intent. I have no constitutional right, nor a moral one
to tell another paper how to run its business. I would like to take a
moment and raise a few points and to answer a few that were raised in
your January 9th letter to Tim Harris, Chair of NASNA and Editor of Real
Change, Seattle. It is too bad that you were unable to meet with NASNA
before moving into Los Angeles. Having already decided on your November
publishing date (moved forward to March and now April ), you waited quite
a while for a dialogue with Making Change about your plans for
publishing in America and its effects on our own street newspapers. The
perception is we have not been invived to participate and that you would
prefer conflict to consultation.
I believe that it is of great value for us to listen to each
other. Similarly, there is little value in name calling. It is also
of great importance to give an open forum to papers in Europe who coexist
with the Big Issue so that we can fairly see what effects the Big Issue
might have on a street paper such as ours. Including other members of
INSP in our discussion before your publication of the Big Issue in Los
Angeles is important. This dialogue and the decisions that come out of
it will have an inevitable widespread ripple effect on street papers
around the world. This conversation is vital ly necessary. If all
street papers can somehow unite in a National and International movement
toward ending the causes of Homelessness, we can turn our current
differences of opinion to mutual advantage--and to the advantage of
homeless people worldwide.
I don't believe that my conversation in Seattle , as I'm sure
Ruth would agee , was a open invitation for the Big Issue to come and set
up shop, fix a printing date, finalize a publishing schedule, and then
give me a call to see if I needed any advice on how to make my paper look
better. You state that Len Doucette had a tiny publication that didn't
print very often. Then later you and Cara both claim that somehow Ruth
and I made some compact and agreement okaying the Big Issue's publishing
here. The homeless people of Los Angeles have their own opinion of
corporate social service structures--like yours--supposedly that are
built on "helping them".
Ruth and I had a very candid discussion on how a paper like the
Big Issue would be helpful in cities that do not have street papers. We
agreed that the Big Issue model is one from which we may all derive
valuable lessons. I even stated that the Big Issue, if it were to work
together with existing papers, could be a strong organizing force
nationally, internationally, and--most important to many of
us--locally. Making Change was on the list of street newspapers, with
address and telephone that Ruth brought home from her visit to Seattle
last fall. Why didn't Ruth forward that information in the "memo" I
keep hearing about from Cara? It would have taken a few simple steps to
avoid alienating my paper and many other small papers alarmed at The Big
Issue's behavior. Does not your INSP (International Network of Street
Papers) charter state a member will not invade the established selling
area of an existing charter member? My paper is a member of NASNA.
NASNA is a member of the INSP. This means Making Change is an INSP
member whose territory you are violating. How can we not see your moves
and your motives as hostile?
Why is contacting me so important? I have worked to organize a
newspaper based on solutions to poverty from a 100% poor people's
perspective. The paper is sold by poor and unhoused people in Los
Angeles. This month we opened our new office at the Los Angeles
Coalition to End Hunger and Homelessness in downtown Los Angeles- a
nationally-recognized organization that fights poverty. Our Board has
homeless people on it . We regard ourselves as successful and
responsible--in contrast to the prior management. We also partner with
the Homeless Writer's Coalition represented by Robert Chambers who has
distributed his publication in Los Angeles for several years.
I'm not sure you can call me "anti-business" when one of the
largest alternative papers in Los Angeles and incidentally Seattle too,
the LA Weekly publishes our paper. We distribute our paper out of the
storefront of independent bookstores like The Midnight Special and and
other shops like the Co-Opportunity Natural Foods Grocer who represent a
constituency of thoughtful and socially-minded people from different
classes of society. Recognized entertainers like Martin Sheen and Comic
Relief support us as well.
We claim the support of groups like the Agape Church, Helping
Other People Eat, Children Helping Poor and Homeless People, the Westside
Food Bank, the Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce, Beth Shir Shalom, Jewish
Community Foundation, Homeless Health Care Foundation, Acorn and Food Not
Bombs/Homes Not Jails. Some of the agencies we network with have made
real efforts to change their structure to meet the needs of the people.
Regarding my credentials: I am on the Board of Directors of the Los
Angeles Homeless Services Authority, a member of the Santa Monica
Social Services Commission, Chairperson of Side by Side a Community
Partnership, Santa Monica point person for the California Civil Rights
Action Network, and a NASNA executive steering committee member. As
important of all of that, I have been homeless for four years in Los
Angeles and a resident for seven.
What support you claim in the homeless community here seems to
come from individuals with controversial reputations. The former paper
was run into the ground by an editor that you are now using as a
spearhead for your invasion. We have had to reinvent Making Change
(previously called Hard Times) to save the paper for our vendors and our
readers. Though the paper began in Santa Monica, it is now published
out of downtown Los Angeles, where we are beginning distribution.
Surely you and I seem to agree that neither of us corners the market.
Making Change's writers have been in the forefront of successful
homeless activism. We have opened doors for the homeless to commissions,
from which they were previously excluded; we have prompted the creation
of programs that our city had never seen before. Our paper, while small
and struggling, is a successful community-based, community-supported
paper. We are recognized by many to be one of the most important tools
of Social Service Agency Reform. We openly publicize police citations and
harassment of unhoused people and private acts of discrimination. we
urge public, protection of vital social resources like public showers.
We demand equal access to public spaces. We challenge economic
segregation. Our artistic style that punctures tvicious stereotypes.
The Hard Times partnership resulted in major reforms that
evolved into Making Change. We have even been heralded by Santa Monica
City Council Members who are "anti-homeless" as being better organized
and more effective in making our issues clear and known than neighborhood
groups funded by the City of Santa Monica. (Public Record: KCRW and City
TV) We are not exactly what you would call ineffective. True--we do not
focus on mass distribution. We do not covet the big market . We do not
believe that smoothly pickpocketing Americans with a slick product is
our primary goal. We do not believe we can somehow change the world with
a flick of a dollar.
I don't believe that mainstream people or politicians who make it
their jobs not to think in depth in our community will separate in their
minds that The Big Issue and Making Change are different types of
papers. We both have homeless vendors and we both have homeless
articles. Our content is where we part company. Your corporate product
is classified as Free Speech Vending which by our laws will subject your
vendors to permit costs of $50.00 less or more depending on the outcome
of the legal challenge. We will consequently be lumped in with
you--seriously disadvantaging our vendors here in Los Angeles. We
have protection precisely because we are small and because there is only
one of us in our area. You, on the other hand, have large amounts of
investment income, supreme technology, a budget that can handle paid
staff significiant investmentin widespread advertising. We exist to
provide a side of the issue that doesn't come from our media and that
won't come from you.
We also exist to one day provide the relief so necessary for poor
people desperate to survive, but we want homeless people to be
instrumental in making this change. Indeed, only they can make it.
Replacing our homegrown homeless paper with your overseas corporate
paper, may in the short term provide jobs, but in the long run
perpetuates the stereotype that homeless people can never make their own
way. If homeless people are that incapable then why even give them
jobs?
Stating that we fear competition is not a fair argument. If Len
Doucette had decided to reprint his paper Hard Times, his competition
would have legitimancy. Yours does not--even though you arrive on his
coattails and at his invitation. A paper silently underwritten, you can
try, but surely it is kinda weird strategy to end homelessness in a
coalitive effort when there is already one in existence and we are not
cemented or restricted or constrained by preordained dogma! We should
allow a fair and democratic by the people approach to build it and have
good natured publications like the Big Issue lend support in every way in
unity, not separation because of philosophy. People and businesses want
feel good, affect real social change with the dollars they spend for
products like their tooth paste or their recycled paper products or their
organic foods but poverty should never be painted over with a feel good
image that may in any way diminish or somehow avoid confronting people
with the truth of what pain and suffering actually feels like from the
social economic refugees own accounts. Even if it isn't pretty it is
reality and shielding the public fromt hat reality does not help a
homeless person, it reinforces the stereotype that some homeles people
are good because they sell a paper and some homeless people are
worthless.
I believe that it is of great value for all of us to get to hear
from each other. There is little value in name calling but it is of
great importance to give an open forum to papers in Europe who coexist
with the Big Issue so that we can fairly see what effects the Big Issue
may have on a street paper such as ours. It would be of great service if
we did include members of INSP into our discussion, at some point before
your publication of Big Issue in Los Angeles. Our discussions and
decisions will have the inevitable widespread ripple effect on street
newspapers around the world. This conversation is vital not demanded:
for all papers to somehow unite in our National and International
movement towards ending the causes of Homelessness.
To progress we need actual editorial content, history and news
reporting on a comprehensive basis of what is being done by the homeless
and by progressive social activists and agencies. We need to challenge
corporate domination with a strong editorial commitment to informing
readers how they can be involved in this struggle, who they need to talk
to, and why homeless people are not a different entity than the rest of
society. We need to arm homeless people with the facts of social and
political justice. We no longer need pity portraits of the homeless.
We no longer need social services provided for us, but by us, as flawed
as we may be. If we're so damn employable, then it should be a natural
solution, not an argument. To say that jobs is the only thing homeles
people need drastically underestimates the complexity of the homeless
situation.
Though NASNA members may disagree about many things, we all
highly value our vendors. We are people who have devoted our lives to
challenging the injustice that exists where we live, We have learned
our work from the U.S. Civil Rights movement and other liberation
movements of the past. The work we do is everyday and mostly out of our
own pockets. We too started from nothing and have turned our papers into
voices of the people. Each has its own distribution, according to our
economic ability. Some handwrite their papers. Fledgling papers deserve
our national support not replacement because they are not immediately
marketable or currently funded. Who knows? If these papers got some
help with technical support like computers, internet access and
telephone costs, they could rival those of established larger-scale
magazines in other countries? Organic grassroots efforts by homeless
people must be supported not replaced.
We all need a National (and possibly International) Press
Service carrying issues and stories from member papers. Sharing
problems resources, and information can only strengthen the organizing
we need to do. With or without Egos we all have flaws. Some of us are
born argumentative but that makes our issues no less dire, our passion no
less beautiful and our voice no less valuable than any other paper's.
All our spirits seek justice, peace and solidarity.
In fact, two San Francisco papers coexist and do so with great
life, color and success. Street Sheet and Street Spirit are both strong
independent papers. Without speaking for them, I know they do not
respect your move into Los Angeles and support me unequivocally. Other
papers like the Burnside Cadillac and the Street "Shit" Sheet of Santa
Cruz are vocal and completely dedicated activists burning with the pain
of the socially distressed, committed to solidarity with the homeless.
Their biggest issue is with multi-national corporations who traditionally
reject, ignore, or devalue the voice of the poor.
We all want to be heard and supported in our work, not replaced
or devalued or ignored or go unfunded while others glamourously portray
Homelessness to cut a bigger share of their pie, leaving homeless people
again, out in the rain. How is this corporate philosophy any
different from that of companies who hire day laborers leaving them
without civilized benefits like health care, inside/upward mobility,
livable wages, co-operative administration or profit-sharing with
employees? (Midnight Special and Co-Opportunity are excellent models of
progressive business structure who take another road.)
Some in NASNA are more sympathetic to your objective to give
vendors a salable product that is not what you term "a pity purchase
." Why aren't you in their cities setting up shop, instead of here in
Los Angeles where you force me to oppose you? Does the Body Shop really
need you in a major city like Los Angeles? As wonderful as the Big Issue
is, it hasn't ended homelessness in Europe or any other city where it has
set up shop.
As far as our 'racism' is concerned, here are my credentials. I
am deeply involved with Sol Communications
(http:www.solcommunications.com] I work with the American Indian
Movement and Big Mountain and their fight with Peabody Coal
Company--which is evicting them into homelessness. Peabody is a European
Corporation recognized in February by the United Nations as being nearly
as devastating to our Native People our own government. I visited Baja
this last December to try and bring in the paper of the Maquiladora
Workers into the North America Circle who serves a strictly Spanish
speaking population.
We would not advocate for a white corporation to take over a
successful African American magazine to have African American people sell
that product because they need jobs. It's just ludicrous to think you
can do the same in America with the homeless. We want to build bridges
but it is also important for me to know more about you. What
anti-homeless laws have you changed in Europe and England? How can you
effectively challenge corporate racism and genocide with fluff? How do
infomercials and puff pieces adequately convey what it is like having
your human rights violated by the richest country in the world?
Your unilateral invasion of Los Angeles seems to me to be a kind
of Trojan horse tactic. You portray me as somehow "involved" in the
building of your paper when you've already set a date to publish and
hired an outside to be in charge (with a background of being here 5
weeks). How are the community members we represent now a part of the
framework for a solid community-spirited publication you assert TBI to
be, based in a community you don't even know ? Your Trojan horse
tactic reminds me of American Trojans which are used to fuck people
without incurring extended responsibilities.
You are right when you say that there is a need for more activist
publications in the US. We also need a legal support foundation and
national organizing support, participation to foster a civil rights
movement for the homeless. I want a foundation for grassroots 100%
homeless based newspapers across the nation that can sprout from the
success of larger more widely published papers. I want support for a
national and international newswire news service devoted to hunger,
homelessness and human rights.
Our smaller papers need help with computers and publishing
programs. We need members like the Big Issue, just like the Big Issue
needs us. But, we cannot watch you walk past us to do your business and
not take a stand - not just in the United States but also the world.
Outspoken protest and disruption of unjust order is a traditional
response to powers we are otherwise defenseless against and who we
philosophically can not negotiate with. I am no stranger to creative
civil disobedience as a talent with the best of homeless activists.
Local media understands when the poor stand against the powerful in a
just struggle. I believe they get the picture when a multi-million
dollar chain paper moves in to crush a local homegrown homeless
publication.
It is certainly apparent that we have some work to do together
before a publication of the Big Issue goes forward. I ASK THAT YOU GIVE
A FIRM AND SPECIFIC COMMITMENT TO POSTPONE YOUR BIG ISSUE PUBLICATION
DATE INDEFINITELY UNTIL WE CAN REACH A CONSENSUS ON HOW TO RESOLVE THE
OUSTANDING ISSUES HERE. Our interests can be woven together. We can
agree to end poverty maintenance and move forward with a power and truth
that can do nothing but improve the lives of those who are oppressed,
those who live in poverty, those who need us to work together, not to
split into factions or divisions.
But factions and divisions are incredibly press worthy in Los
Angeles. I guarantee that we will both get plenty of time to air our
differences of opinion in the mass national media circuit. People love
controversy. Which road do we want to take, division or solidarity?
This discussion can strengthen us all or it can provide a rallying cry
for principled division.
I await your immediate answer to this request and look forward to
meeting with you in February. Please tell Ruth I send my wishes to her
for a year of happiness. One thing that few credit the conference with,
is bringing us all together. That process is important so that we may
know each other personally and in struggling with each other, gain
respect for each other. I think that has given us strength in
solidarity, purpose and vision. I hope we can bring everyone together,
the "radicals" and the "un-rad" so we can agree to disagree at the
benefit of all people and to our earth and our children.
Ahomitaquiasin, All My Relations, Jennafer Waggoner
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