ARTIST EVICTION! - 'Justice For A Maker Of Magic & Miracles' - Susan Cervantes (Beyond Chron)
Justice For A Maker Of Magic And Miracles
Allen White 19.AUG.05
The people of San Francisco should say thank you to Susan Cervantes. For 35 years she has been making magic and miracles. Now she needs a miracle and some magic. Susan Cervantes is a special kind of San Franciscan. She is the product of a city where people, some of the weirdest off the wall folk you could ever imagine, create magic and miracles like nowhere else in the world. These mothers of creativity are united by their gift of giving, their capacity to love and a talent as unique and different as the eyes of their beholders.
Susan Cervantes runs the Precita Eyes Mural Arts and Visitors Center. For more than 25 years, Precita Eyes gave help and guided young people to create more than 200 murals on walls across San Francisco. Most San Franciscans, at one time or another, find themselves delighted by these colorful celebrations of culture adjoining the walls of our city.
This woman, Susan Cervantes, educated young people, taught them how to create art and provided the knowledge to facilitate their display. We learn the center she created is the only resource in Northern California for low-cost classes and arts supplies for young muralists.
As Susan Cervantes creates beauty, others in this city reek ugly. They remind us San Francisco is also residence for some very nasty people. These people fail to care or understand miracles and magic are products of struggle and sacrifice. For every maker of miracles and magic others hide in their shadow ready to exploit, to profit and to hurt for personal gain.
Those who charge racial profiling in the war on terror do well to not look at economic profiling when identifying property owners in the war on greed.
To those who care about people, prepare yourself to get angry. To those dedicated to justice for all, get out the armor, its time to get ready for battle. To the good guys who own property, don't read further. The fact is, here we go again.
Enter Douglas Wong and Pearl Yee. They recently bought the building Sue Cervantes lived in over half her life. Forgive the injection of image profiling, but guess what they did next?
Douglas Wong and Pearl Yee have served Ms. Cervantes with a three day notice to vacate her home. Are you surprised? I wasn't!
These property owners aimed a dagger at the heart of a center where makers of magic and miracles were created*..for almost 35 years. Should Wong and Yee prevail, Precita Eyes is history and Sue Cervantes will be forced to move out of town.
Thankfully, San Francisco is also a city of justice. In San Francisco, justice is rising up to give power to those who find themselves helpless. When good people lose, justice is not served. Hurting others for financial gain is justice denied.
We value those who make magic and create miracles. If ever a city existed where the meek shall inherit the earth it is San Francisco. Simply stated, Susan Cervantes deserves better.
I truly believe living in San Francisco carries with it special responsibilities. We benefit from the struggles of many who came before us. Long, hard battles have produced a city like no other in the world.
Make no mistake about it, every reason for making San Francisco special can be taken from us. There is someone, some group, ready to act in an instant to take from us every single reason why we live in San Francisco.
What is happening to Susan Cervantes is absolutely wrong. I hate it because it represents the worst of San Francisco. I believe a strength of San Franciscans is our ability to understand the laws of morality trump all other.
Should Mr. Wong and Ms. Yee have a legal right to act, that right is diminished by their disregard for what is decent. If Mr. Wong and Ms. Yee succeed, San Francisco, and all of us who live here, are worse, not better.
The question today is what can we do to help Susan Cervantes? How can the people of this city make right this wrong?
Today, I don't have the answer for Susan Cervantes. I don't know her. In fact, I don't know Douglas Wong or Pearl Yee.
I do know there is justice. I also know there is a maker of magic and miracles who knows the answer.
~ Allen White
Allen White 19.AUG.05
The people of San Francisco should say thank you to Susan Cervantes. For 35 years she has been making magic and miracles. Now she needs a miracle and some magic. Susan Cervantes is a special kind of San Franciscan. She is the product of a city where people, some of the weirdest off the wall folk you could ever imagine, create magic and miracles like nowhere else in the world. These mothers of creativity are united by their gift of giving, their capacity to love and a talent as unique and different as the eyes of their beholders.
Susan Cervantes runs the Precita Eyes Mural Arts and Visitors Center. For more than 25 years, Precita Eyes gave help and guided young people to create more than 200 murals on walls across San Francisco. Most San Franciscans, at one time or another, find themselves delighted by these colorful celebrations of culture adjoining the walls of our city.
This woman, Susan Cervantes, educated young people, taught them how to create art and provided the knowledge to facilitate their display. We learn the center she created is the only resource in Northern California for low-cost classes and arts supplies for young muralists.
As Susan Cervantes creates beauty, others in this city reek ugly. They remind us San Francisco is also residence for some very nasty people. These people fail to care or understand miracles and magic are products of struggle and sacrifice. For every maker of miracles and magic others hide in their shadow ready to exploit, to profit and to hurt for personal gain.
Those who charge racial profiling in the war on terror do well to not look at economic profiling when identifying property owners in the war on greed.
To those who care about people, prepare yourself to get angry. To those dedicated to justice for all, get out the armor, its time to get ready for battle. To the good guys who own property, don't read further. The fact is, here we go again.
Enter Douglas Wong and Pearl Yee. They recently bought the building Sue Cervantes lived in over half her life. Forgive the injection of image profiling, but guess what they did next?
Douglas Wong and Pearl Yee have served Ms. Cervantes with a three day notice to vacate her home. Are you surprised? I wasn't!
These property owners aimed a dagger at the heart of a center where makers of magic and miracles were created*..for almost 35 years. Should Wong and Yee prevail, Precita Eyes is history and Sue Cervantes will be forced to move out of town.
Thankfully, San Francisco is also a city of justice. In San Francisco, justice is rising up to give power to those who find themselves helpless. When good people lose, justice is not served. Hurting others for financial gain is justice denied.
We value those who make magic and create miracles. If ever a city existed where the meek shall inherit the earth it is San Francisco. Simply stated, Susan Cervantes deserves better.
I truly believe living in San Francisco carries with it special responsibilities. We benefit from the struggles of many who came before us. Long, hard battles have produced a city like no other in the world.
Make no mistake about it, every reason for making San Francisco special can be taken from us. There is someone, some group, ready to act in an instant to take from us every single reason why we live in San Francisco.
What is happening to Susan Cervantes is absolutely wrong. I hate it because it represents the worst of San Francisco. I believe a strength of San Franciscans is our ability to understand the laws of morality trump all other.
Should Mr. Wong and Ms. Yee have a legal right to act, that right is diminished by their disregard for what is decent. If Mr. Wong and Ms. Yee succeed, San Francisco, and all of us who live here, are worse, not better.
The question today is what can we do to help Susan Cervantes? How can the people of this city make right this wrong?
Today, I don't have the answer for Susan Cervantes. I don't know her. In fact, I don't know Douglas Wong or Pearl Yee.
I do know there is justice. I also know there is a maker of magic and miracles who knows the answer.
~ Allen White
posted by Lorna Dee Cervantes at 11:20 AM
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