Rich kid from Marin, child of the streets join share-the-wealth effort
Mill Valley-raised Iris Brilliant, left, and homeless activist Lisa Gray-Garcia joined poor Native American, black and Hispanic people on a tour of Belvedere to encourage residents to “redistribute” their wealth to the needy.Robert Tong — Marin Independent Journal
By Paul Liberatore, Marin Independent Journal
POSTED: 06/24/17, 5:19 PM PDT | UPDATED: 2 MINS AGO13 COMMENTS
Lisa Gray-Garcia, center, co-founder of POOR Magazine, is with the staff in Oakland. Gray-Garcia calls “wealth and resource hoarding” a disease.Robert Tong — Marin Independent Journal
To learn more about the “Stolen Land/Hoarded Resources Tour’ and the Bank of Community Reparations, call 510-435-7500 or email poormag@gmail.com.
Iris Brilliant and Lisa Gray-Garcia come from two very different Americas.
The 29-year-old daughter of a well-known Mill Valley physician, Brilliant grew up wealthy and privileged in affluent Marin County.
Gray-Garcia, nicknamed “Tiny,” was a child of the streets, homeless and destitute and desperate, her troubled single mother’s sole caregiver when she was just 11 years old.
In a country with glaring income inequality and disappearing social mobility, these two women have broken through social and class barriers to become unlikely cohorts and allies.
“It took a lot of effort because our lives were set up to never have a relationship,” Brilliant said. “We were trained not to be able to build a relationship with people like each other. That we’ve been able to do that is almost a miracle.”
Brilliant, Gray-Garcia, First Nations leader Corrina Gould and other activists associated with Oakland’s Poor Magazine, which Gray-Garcia co-founded in 1996, have joined together in a new kind of “community reparations” movement — one that identifies rich people as “wealth hoarders” who can make things right by “redistributing” their excess money, land and assets to the poor and homeless.
For the past year, groups of black, brown, indigenous and disabled people have been embarking on what they’re calling “Stolen Land/Hoarded Resources Tours” of upscale neighborhoods across the country, going door-to-door with a novel spin on the concept of sharing the wealth through a new “Bank of Community Reparations,” founded by a coalition of Bay Area nonprofits. There is also a Go Fund Me website.
Loosely modeled on India’s Bhoodan Movement, which involved wealthy landowners gifting land to the poor, the tours began last Earth Day in San Francisco’s Nob Hill and Pacific Heights neighborhoods, then moved on to Piedmont in the East Bay, Beverly Hills, the Hamptons, Manhattan’s Park Avenue and the Main Line in Philadelphia. Last Sunday, the tour arrived in Belvedere, one of Marin’s wealthiest enclaves.
“These tours take a strong emotional toll on poor folks and people of color,” Brilliant said. “It can be traumatizing for them to enter into a See Article HERE
Editor's Note: Don't miss their video. Is this group for real?
By Paul Liberatore, Marin Independent Journal
POSTED: 06/24/17, 5:19 PM PDT | UPDATED: 2 MINS AGO13 COMMENTS
Lisa Gray-Garcia, center, co-founder of POOR Magazine, is with the staff in Oakland. Gray-Garcia calls “wealth and resource hoarding” a disease.Robert Tong — Marin Independent JournalGiving Back
To learn more about the “Stolen Land/Hoarded Resources Tour’ and the Bank of Community Reparations, call 510-435-7500 or email poormag@gmail.com.
Iris Brilliant and Lisa Gray-Garcia come from two very different Americas.
The 29-year-old daughter of a well-known Mill Valley physician, Brilliant grew up wealthy and privileged in affluent Marin County.
Gray-Garcia, nicknamed “Tiny,” was a child of the streets, homeless and destitute and desperate, her troubled single mother’s sole caregiver when she was just 11 years old.
In a country with glaring income inequality and disappearing social mobility, these two women have broken through social and class barriers to become unlikely cohorts and allies.
“It took a lot of effort because our lives were set up to never have a relationship,” Brilliant said. “We were trained not to be able to build a relationship with people like each other. That we’ve been able to do that is almost a miracle.”
Brilliant, Gray-Garcia, First Nations leader Corrina Gould and other activists associated with Oakland’s Poor Magazine, which Gray-Garcia co-founded in 1996, have joined together in a new kind of “community reparations” movement — one that identifies rich people as “wealth hoarders” who can make things right by “redistributing” their excess money, land and assets to the poor and homeless.
For the past year, groups of black, brown, indigenous and disabled people have been embarking on what they’re calling “Stolen Land/Hoarded Resources Tours” of upscale neighborhoods across the country, going door-to-door with a novel spin on the concept of sharing the wealth through a new “Bank of Community Reparations,” founded by a coalition of Bay Area nonprofits. There is also a Go Fund Me website.
Loosely modeled on India’s Bhoodan Movement, which involved wealthy landowners gifting land to the poor, the tours began last Earth Day in San Francisco’s Nob Hill and Pacific Heights neighborhoods, then moved on to Piedmont in the East Bay, Beverly Hills, the Hamptons, Manhattan’s Park Avenue and the Main Line in Philadelphia. Last Sunday, the tour arrived in Belvedere, one of Marin’s wealthiest enclaves.
BELVEDERE VISIT
“These tours take a strong emotional toll on poor folks and people of color,” Brilliant said. “It can be traumatizing for them to enter into a See Article HERE
Editor's Note: Don't miss their video. Is this group for real?
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