Going A(lto)P(alo)E(ast) Over A New Syntax for Activists
by Richard Oxman

Me and Marcel (for a reason, not Marcel and I) got off of 101 at the University Avenue exit, and our stomachs turned as The Oxmen edged past a spanking new Ikea outlet, into East Palo Alto, where nothing Swedish survives, but where you can smell Stanford…it’s so near…yet so far.

We were early, and that was a good thing ‘cause I had a lot of difficulty finding Youth United for Community Action. I hadn’t taken the address with me, so although we were on Clarke Street at 2:20…I didn’t pull up to the appointment with Annie until 3:00 (on the nose!) at # 2135.

During the forty minutes that I spent in East Palo Alto once I passed the local Ikea/McDonald’s vortex, I experienced a whole lot. YUCA was supposed to be situated right around the corner from Bay, as I understood it. But…it was down quite a ways.

We had been within a couple of houses of the place actually, at one point, but there wasn’t anything around to tell us that we were warm. In fact, all of EPAlto that I went through was seriously devoid of most of what I’m used to seeing in communities ‘cross the board. Don’t ask.

I had to travel backwards to arrive there. But this was not Back to the Future fun ‘n games. This was Alto Palo East — East Palo Alto turned ass backwards and inside out, shorn of a present tension — only a day away from (the) annihilation (of yesterday). Limp. It was the low life expectancy of Swaziland with the full knowledge that a perennial Pac-10 Powerhouse was only spitting distance away. A 1950s Protectorate in a 21st century tortured Chamber of Death…replete with dead leaves behind useless fences, and feces galore. The likes of Ikea and McDonald’s were both draining the community from different angles. Bloodless in its veins. Transfused out.

It reminded me of how Mayor Addonizio and the real New Jersey Sopranos had left Newark, my Jerry Lewis/Philip Roth romp of a home town, at the beginning of the 70s. Just after U.S. tanks came up Central Avenue to celebrate the ’68 assassination of MLKing…with some of the prejudiced kids I grew up with…who grew up to be racist cops, maiming who and what meant most to me.

“Why is that guy on the bicycle weaving in and out of traffic, Papi?” “Yah, no Lance Armstrongs here, Marcel, but lots of varieties of cancer. I dunno.”

At one point in my search, Whitey Me pulled up to a crowd of locals, some of whom were streaming in and out of a dilapidated dwelling, many seeming to filter every which possible way at once. There were several conversations going on simultaneously, so when I “interrupted “ everyone to ask for directions…I didn’t know who to apologize to first.

“Anyone know where Youth United for Community Action is located? They’re supposed to be on Clarke.”

Some acted as if they had heard a voice, but couldn’t determine where it was coming from. Not acting, I don’t think. Others totally ignored my presence, even with six-year-old Marcel clearly visible directly behind me, still strapped in his car seat. One frightening looking mix of a Bouvier des Flanders (hair, shape of face) and a Shar-Pei (coloring, flesh folds) –after taxing his mind to the max, in two seconds flat– pointed to a brown car thirty feet away, and said, “Ollie’ll know.”

As I hesitatingly moved toward Ollie’s shadowy seated figure, one eye on Marcel (having reassured him I’d be back in a few seconds), I saw one of the frantic women in the group suddenly (and angrily) jump into a damaged 70s Chevy, and back up just a wee bit too fast for my taste…close to my front bumper, in full view of my son…whose expression I could only guess at…now that I was at Ollie’s window, as contorted as a Twister player.

It was East Palo Alto Officer Ollie, actually.

He not only didn’t have a clue concerning the whereabouts of YUCA. He never took his eyes off of the crowd as he spoke to me. “Maybe at the church,” he oinked, throwing his head back a bit to gesture toward what was on the corner. If I so much as glanced at the church, I wondered, would I miss the opportunity to jump in front of the bullet he seemed prepared to fire in Marcel’s direction?

Sergeant Ollie hadn’t even ever heard of YUCA. So much for their “community” campaigns against the local hazardous waste site. (See http://oxtogrind.org/archive/195 for some elaboration, context).

The church was closed. So was the Sanitary Department building across the street from it. And ditto for the other church I came across in my spot checks.

One Mexican-like establishment (take-out restaurant?) had its doors open. The young woman outside on the cell phone –standing on and enveloped by mucho broken glass– stopped talking once I pulled up, and stuck my head into the place. Lucky, ‘cause I hadn’t been able to locate a working public phone whilst taking the scenic road through EPA. No Muthaiga Club here; not even a Smalls Paradise. No one actually answered at YUCA to give me directions (though I was only five minutes from my designated arrival time), but the recording did mention that they were at #2135!

I had an opportunity to give my presentation to twenty-two-year-old Annie, once I arrived. In fact, she gave me a full hour of blah blah back and forth. I thought my pitch was spot-on-target, and that Marcel served as a great asset on several counts. I definitely felt some real electricity solidarity-wise. But that’s another piece. For the moment, the fears I always express about The Myth of Solidarity seemed as if they might prove to be groundless. There was the prospect of a bite. A chance that some young people of color might invite me to brainstorm with them respecting how we can all weather the storm that’s rising ‘round us all.

And come up with something with a bit of a bite beyond, say, dancing with Ron Dellums for the cameras in Oakland on behalf of The Generic People.

Upon returning home, I immediately sent out an email to thank Annie for fitting in a meeting with me out of her busy schedule. I proposed several possible follow-up approaches, actions. And now I can wait to see how long it takes for something to happen. To see if something takes place at all.

Granted, I was asking to join hands with a small core group…to ascend toward a goal of mutual interest by carving out a whole new back road, avoiding the temptation of trudging up the same old path. The one that alternativos usually embrace routinely; cookie-cutter activism. So a true challenge was placed on the table. Something strange and troubling. I was clearly not interested in simply being busy, following (proven) failed parameters for protest with people on the government’s Short Hit List. Nevertheless, there was a spark of connection. I heard something running, and I felt wheels capable of traction.

I left several books for YUCA’s budding library, including several copies of works by Stan Goff, James Loewen, and Mickey Z et. al. …which I said they could use for fundraising or…whatever. Left over from a huge event Sylvie and I put on three years ago this month in Too White Santa Cruz. All else being equal, I let it be known, I had much more to contribute to Annie’s organization.

We’ll see. If this dying, desperate gesture of mine bears any fruit.

If that poor group in that devastated neighborhood shows no interest in taking me up on anything…I don’t know what I’ll do. The only challenge left, perhaps, will be to figure out what that says.

Three years ago, when Marcel’s mom and I put together OneDance: The People’s Summit (“Either everyone dances or no one dances.”), a three-day Alternative Extravaganza in Fashionably Left SCruz, California…we harbored high hopes, having gathered Cynthia McKinney, William Blum (Osama’s Hero), Stan Goff, Michael Parenti, and tons of other well-known, highly respected talent (with Mickey Z as a rock solid MC). For free for everyone.
In spite of the positive contributions, though, it was a huge disappointment on several significant counts, not the least of which had to do with our beginning to see that no solidarity seemed possible nationwide. Coupled with the notion that local seeds planted would NEVER amount to a hill of beans on a broad scale. And the initiation into insight concerning the counterproductive territorial trauma among The Left…and many other petty, impotent aspects of what passes –superficially– as Alternative Blah Blah.

I am looking at an empty, unmusical stage now. At present, I am praying that these people of color –with young Annie at the lead– will help me to sing “Tomorrow.”

Marcel likes that song. I too, me.

ADDENDUM AS OF NOON PST, MONDAY, ON MLK DAY:
Select List from Twenty Top Reasons –On OneDance’s 3rd Anniversary– Why It Doesn’t Look Good
(In no special order)
1. Cynthia McKinney’s been buried…easily.
2. Former “activist colleagues” of mine refuse to bury the hatchet.
3. Readers of my articles are still not getting my drift. Or my thrust.
4. Left Capital Santa Cruz only gave Peter Camejo 5% in the Governor’s race.
5. Derrick Jensen’s rap remains relatively untapped.
6. Counterpunch, Znet and Democracy Now! haven’t changed.
7. Swaziland’s life expectancy is now down to 32 something and Andorra’s is up to 83 something, without much of a fuss being made about that or the fact that a) the lowest thirty-nine life expectancies (with the exception of Haiti and Afghanistan) are all from Africa and b) the very bottom of the list has seven nations under 40.
8. Media reform is still being hawked up the kazoo without simultaneous demands for Archer Daniels Midland to drop out of The Realm.
9. Less than 1% of my activist-related communications are honored with meaningful responses.
10. Annie hasn’t called. (Maybe it’s ‘cause it’s MLKing Day?)
11. Like there’s no tomorrow, I haven’t heard anything from Annie.

Richard Oxman, at rmoxman@yahoo.com until the spam makes it necessary to switch to onescriptNOatSPAMyahoo.com, lives in White East Los Gatos, and welcomes dark and light feedback, language lessons. Anyone for YMCA in lieu of YUCA? His most updated versions of articles always appear at www.oxtogrind.org. Sometimes he updates quite a bit…over long periods of time.