Totally illegal discrimination against homeless people is being practiced at the Long Beach Public Library. Security guards have been instructed to use the excuse that no bags can be brought into the library to ban the homeless, who are then faced with the alternatives of leaving their possessions outside (where the chances are very high that they will be stolen) or losing their right to use the public library, which is exactly what the library administration wants them to lose. Employees have been, I am informed, instructed to cooperate by reporting homeless people carrying even small bags to the guards. Meanwhile, workers at the library have been told to fawn on the "business community" and develop an enthusiastic attitude about setting up special tables and computers for business executives to use, even though most of them do not even live inside the city of Long Beach. The guards have been warned not to harrass them even if they bring in giant suitcases on wheels despite the fact that the homeless cannot bring in a bag of any size because it may constitute a "safety hazard."
To add to the sleaziness, the Library is now boasting that it is a friend of the disabled because it has a special room where computers accesssible to wheel-chair bound people, the sight-impaired, and others is supposedly open to everyone. The problem is that it is not; the whole thing is a fraud. Many, perhaps most of the severly disabled people in the immediate vicinity of the library are homeless. They cannot use the special services for the handicapped because they cannot get into the library without leaving all their worldly possessions outside to be stolen. It certainly takes a cold heart and a cynical mind to think up a policy like that and then boast that the library is a friend of the disabled.
Homeless people with bags who refuse to leave the library have the cops called on them, and often end up being brutalized and arrested for disturbing the peace. This situation is an atrocity.
Anyone who wants to protest about this situation can e-mail the library at eschmidt@lbpl.org. or simply go to the library's web site at www.lbpl.org.

lots of places to sit and books to read. It could be fun but you have to be quiet. :-)

This situation is disgraceful and should be ended immediately

No, it isn't "disgraceful". No one wants to sit next to some smelly vagrant, or a psychotic raving lunatic, or a drunk, drugged out mess. If YOU do, I suggest you invite them to YOUR house for milk and cookies.

A person can be legally excluded from a library for drunkeness or rowdy behavior, but not for being poor and probably homeless by appearance. Or maybe you think that libraries and cops should be free to break the law? That identifies you as a fascist. That bag nonsense seems like just an excuse to discriminate against the poor to me, while kissing up to the wealthy.

more unsustantiated rumors from our friends on the
left

The local liberal rag 'LB press-Telegram' would be all over this story..if it were real.

i've seen mental patient quailty homeless in the libraries of LB: they don't cause trouble and nothing is done to them.

If you saw them in the library that means they had to leave their belongings outside and take the chance of someone stealing them. I know you were not asked to do the same. Is it that you can't see the discrimination there, that you don't want to see it, or that you are in favor of it? You sound like someone who goes through life taking skin privelege, class privelege, and (I would bet my last dollar on this) male sex privelege for granted.

If you saw them in the library that means they had to leave their belongings outside and take the chance of someone stealing them.

----“They” had no belongings. And I don’t know what galaxy you’re living in, but the homeless have next-to-nothing of value. Few would steal a few recyclables and stinking garbage.

I know you were not asked to do the same.

----I carry a backpack, not a milk crate (no doubt stolen) filled with clanking glass bottles.

Is it that you can't see the discrimination there, that you don't want to see it, or that you are in favor of it?

----My point was, had you bothered to read it, is I have seen NO discrimination against homeless. No bums were ever asked to leave.

You sound like someone who goes through life taking skin privelege, class privelege, and (I would bet my last dollar on this) male sex privelege for granted.

----I’d trade all my perceived ‘privileges’ for your main one: that of being a self-anointed, professional victim. After all, victims are free to demand unearned rewards and scam lots of other people’s money. Since I'm not a poor Black person like Oprah, Bill Cosby or Will Smith, I still work.

---- Re; 'privilege' I bet you either sleep in a dorm—paid for by taxpayers, just like your marxist professor’s $85K per annum salary—or at home with the folks or with a few roommates.

----I sleep in my car.

----So I’ll take that ‘last dollar’ now. Probably from a minority-only Pell grant

Ah yes - Oprah is rich, and so is Magic Johnson. That proves that there are not masses of Blacks living in poverty and oppression in places like north Long Beach. And it certainly proves that anything that happens to or is done to the homeless (who belong to all races) is their own fault.
By the way, you might not have gotten in with that backpack if the guard thought you were homeless.
Thanks for admitting that you are a racist as well as a classist. And, I'd like to add, it has been may years since I was in college. And I didn't live in a dorm. I couldn't afford it. With my parents' income, I'm damned lucky I didn't wind up homeless myself. I was lucky to grow up before Reagan and the Bush brats were in power.

Discrimination against the homeless simply on the basis that they look like they are homeless is illegal. That is why the library is hiding behind the manufactured issue of bags (even small bags) carried by homeless people being a safety hazard. Only a fool would believe a story like that. We can have a society in which it is assumed that discriminating against people because they are poverty stricken is ok, while fawning on people who look like they have money and power is also natural and ok. I don't want to live in that kind of society, whose worst aspects people like Bush, the Neo-cons and the Christian Right are trying to encourage. They have plenty of flunkies from army generals to library bureaucrats willing to help them out. I say let's fight them.

Ah yes - Oprah is rich, and so is Magic Johnson. That proves that there are not masses of Blacks living in poverty and oppression in places like north Long Beach.

----It proves that race is a very tiny factor in being successful. Most Blacks are middle class and do quite well in spite of being victicrats. As for race, why don’t you just admit you’re another lefty self-hating White person and be done with it? An if you ain't White, you may as well join the race-baiting poverty-pimps over at Rainbow Coalition.

----"Oppression?" If so, it's a hell of a lot less here than anywhere else in the world.

And it certainly proves that anything that happens to or is done to the homeless (who belong to all races) is their own fault.

----Only a third of the homeless are mentally ill. The other two-thirds must prefer the homeless lifestyle. The ones who don't want to be homeless you won’t see on the streets, since there’s jobs for anyone willing to WORK. Maybe cracking a book in the library as opposed to sleeping would help too.

By the way, you might not have gotten in with that backpack if the guard thought you were homeless.

----There are no guards except part-timers at the Main Branch. And you’re full of it, since I was carrying the same backpack in there right after 9-11. BTW the homeless have all but overrun the areas outside the library; they have made it dangerous and unpleasant for the people who own the library: taxpayers.

Thanks for admitting that you are a racist as well as a classist.

-----Really, Leo, like I give a shit what an elitist communist—not to mention phony--thinks. I know who I am and don’t need a Stalin worshipper to define terms, thanks.

And, I'd like to add, it has been may years since I was in college. And I didn't live in a dorm. I couldn't afford it. With my parents' income, I'm damned lucky I didn't wind up ---homeless myself. I was lucky to grow up before Reagan and the Bush brats were in power.

-------It’s funny how you credit yourself with the old “lifted myself by my bootstraps” then have the gaul to suggest you’re the only one capable of such things.

-------And what does "luck" have to do with it? Did you ever notice the harder one works, the "luckier" one gets?

-------As for tying your own success or failure to who is President, you might as well go by astrology.

-------We all know you leftists truly "CARE" about your fellow man. That's what makes you "superior" to Christian Right, who give more to charities than Socialists ever have, or will.

You agree with Ronnie that the homeless are homeless because they want to be. Do you also agree with that fool that submarine-launched missles can be called back in the event of a mistake so that there is nothing to worry about? That trees cause more pollution than industry? That SS volunteers were victims of World War II? That hundreds of thousands of laid-off steel workers had nothing to worry about because they could all get jobs repairing computers? Probably you do, because, like him, you are a fool.

I know all about the "homeless". I have worked with them for years in a county general assistance program. The above poster is correct: about one third are certifiably psychotic, schizophrenic, bi-polar, etc. They are on the streets due to 25 years of liberal do-gooders and their 'civil rights' lawyers who have comdemned these people to a life of wandering the street without care, unable to get food, and unable to work or house themselves. As for the other 66%, they consists of transients, petty criminals, vagrants, layabouts, and other such people who feel that is the role of the working taxpayer to subsidize their preference to drugs and booze as opposed to working for their own keep. Personally, I have great sympathy for the crazies, as none of this is their fault. They should be instituionalized and cared for. Fuck your civil rights lawyers. As for the rest of the bums, the sooner they bring back drunk farms the better off our cities will be. Get a job or hit the road, Jack.

Thank you for that charitable and understanding message. It certainly shows a warm heart and a sharp intellect. It is people like you who have made our wonderful society in the US what it is today. A 19th century society in a 21st century world.

You won't get any apologies from me. I sugges you wake up and realize it's not 1968 anymore and move on. There really, truly are people out there who are complete losers. I just won't support them. However, if YOU want to, please go down to your nearest "homeless" shelter and drop off some cash.

You are right that it is not 1968 anymore. Back then most of the homeless were middle-aged and elderly alcoholics. Now we have entire families homeless and homeless veterans just out of the military. It just shows how much people like Nixon, Reagan and the Bushytails have done for our society.

Good work, Dave. We all love your posts down here at the tavern.

STOP RACIAL SLURS ON IMC

CALL TO ACTION

Oakland School Teacher

SF IMC STAFF POSTING OFFENSIVE MATERIAL

THE ASSERTION THAT OAKLAND SCHOOL CHILDREN ARE TOO IGNORANT TO SERVE IN THE ARMY IS A RACIST INSULT TO THE CITY OF OAKLAND AND TO ALL PEOPLE OF COLOR.

i WOULD LIKE TO CALL FOR ALL PEOPLE OF COLOR


TO CONTACT THE MANAGEMENT OF IMC AND DEMAND A RETRACTION OF THE STATEMENT AND DISMISSAL OF THE STAFF PERSON WHO POSTED IT.

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ALL COMMENTS TO:
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also;
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please repost this list as you see fit

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