Ericka Cruz Guevarra: On April 27, 2023, an armed security guard shot and killed a Black trans man named Banko Brown outside of a San Francisco Walgreens after he allegedly stole $14 worth of snacks. Brown was homeless. And his killing sparked outrage. Many saw his death as the worst-case scenario for trans folks living unhoused in San Francisco. Despite that outrage, San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins declined to prosecute the security guard, saying he acted in self defense. And even though Attorney General Rob Bonta promised to re-examine the case at the time, just last Friday his office backed Jenkins’ decision. This announcement was a huge blow to Banko’s family and loved ones,, who are still grieving his death more than a year later.
So today, we’re sharing this episode from September of last year… My colleague Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez sat down with Banko Brown’s chosen family, to discuss life as a homeless queer person in San Francisco, Banko’s life before his death, and what it’ll take to truly make the city a safe place for all queer and trans people. Stay with us.
Xavier Davenport: Homelessness is when you do not have rights to a space of your own. Banko never had a space of his own.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: My colleague and reporter Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez sat down with Banko Brown’s shows and family to discuss life as a homeless queer person in San Francisco. Banko’s life before his death and what it’s going to take to truly make the city a safe place for queer and trans people. Stay with us.
Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez: If you could just very briefly tell me a little bit about yourself. Introduce yourself to folks who are listening with your name, who you are, and your relation to Banko.
JuJu Pikes-Prince: Hello, my name is JuJu. I’m from the Young Woman’s Freedom Center. I’m a youth organizer. I officially met Banko maybe a year ago. But we have– we share relatives. His nieces and nephews are my little cousins. So, I’ve always known Banko, but we never spoke for about a year ago. And that’s when I introduced him to my sister. And he became my sister’s chosen child and I’m the auntie.
Xavier Davenport: I’m Xavier. I met Banko through Young Woman’s Freedom Center. He became my mentee. And that was during the pandemic. We were focused on a lot of projects that were going to empower trans masculinity. I wanted to make sure we had a group during the pandemic, like a peer to peer support group, because the pandemic was very hard for a lot of Transmasculine folks. A lot of them were essential workers. A lot of them were creators that lost jobs. Some of them were sex workers that lost jobs. So my focus was to empower those people and make sure that they were heard. And so Banko would come to those groups.
Kazani Kalani Finao: My name’s Kazani. I met Banko through Young Woman’s Freedom as well. We just had amazing, great conversations. Just always sparring with each other, bouncing back with, like, fun ideas. He uses a bright, outgoing apartment. Conversation was always immaculate, always amazing. Of he was a visionary. The struggle not only brought us together, but like I was able to, like, really build a relation with him based on, like, his gifts. He was very creative, his swag, his drip, like he was a trendsetter to me. He’s definitely inspirational to me to like, you know, him, me younger to me, like I always share with him. Like, bro, you give me so much confidence, you give me so much courage for me to be me. He didn’t even know it. But again, he was just natural at that. Whatever I remember of him is his drips, sauce, smile, hugs, goofiness.
Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez: All the jokes.
Kazani Kalani Finao: Hell yeah, hell yeah. He funny, he hella funny. We always was direct. He pushed me to always have hard conversations. Be honest, being honest. And so to have that and to tell somebody yes, to hold me accountable, I’ll take that any day.
Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez: Banko was in and out of homelessness. And I wonder if you could talk about what was – what the housing situation was like for Banko and what you saw him go through.
JuJu Pikes-Prince: When I first had met Banko, he was housed at some point. Then later on, when we lost another trans sister in the community, Ivory Nicole, that’s when, like, you know, stuff started to come out like, Oh, he’s looking for housing. He has nowhere to go. With only so much a person can do for an individual. It’s hard out here. I’ve been through. But for somebody to sleep on BART and got to blow time just to get it start today. If you go to the center, the $50 gift card or 25 gift card, no one’s gonna ever understand that.
Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez: And we were talking about sleeping on Bart. We’re talking about Banko Banko. You said he drifted in and out of it yourself. Can you talk a little bit about homelessness?
JuJu Pikes-Prince: Navigating homelessness in San Francisco is hard. As hard and it’s expensive. No matter way. Being homeless is still expensive. I was homeless for about two years, maybe a year or two years. I didn’t know what to do and it just wasn’t working out. We were living in McGuire. I thought his his parents were going to take a friend, but that wasn’t the case. Then even shelters. Shelters don’t protect you. Shelters don’t protect my people either. Stuff gets stolen. There’s fights that break out. People look at us like we’re nasty. So it’s things like that that we still have to navigate.
Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez: Have you heard them say that?
JuJu Pikes-Prince: Yeah. I mean, I’ve had problems at the outset and you can’t do nothing about it. You don’t lose this part. So it’s one of those things you got to say to sleep, wake up and do something productive. And so you get called for housing and permanent housing.
Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez: Xavier.
Xavier Davenport: Where do we start?
Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez: Well, it would then go first, and then we’ll go on to your own experiences.
Xavier Davenport: Banko never had a space of his own. Banko had been in and out of shelter, in and out of people’s homes, sometimes even some people’s own sorrows. So let’s really break down what that really looks like when you are living in a one room space with another individual. You do not have privacy. Nine times out of ten, being a transmasculine identify person, especially being black, you have to render some type of services to stay there, whether it be sexual, whether it be drugs. So when we talk about black men and being fetishized, Banko dealt with a lot of that. And so those people would be the people to take him in.
Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez: Here, kind of like not in a long Kazani like like you’ve been there. Have you been there?
Kazani Kalani Finao: I mean, shit’s hella complex. So, for me personally, couch surfing always been my my survival tactic since I can remember of couch surfing, refusing to go to shelters because of horror stories I heard from former homies of going there and, you know, being violated. My mama, she went to prison when I was right after my fifth grade graduation in 2000. That’s when her body album dropped, too, so that that summer was live. So, you know, like, my mom was big shoes, shoes surviving, too. And so her like being sentenced to prison in state prison, being a young person, I mean, to pick up quick to hustle and survive.
Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez: When your mom went to prison, you talk about who who else was there for you, if anyone.
Kazani Kalani Finao: Or family for her immediate family, blood relatives. My mom got nine siblings, eight total that are living. I’m also born and raised in San Francisco when my mom went to prison. They were figuring now they system impacted they in and out of jails allocated. So I just got a bed in somebody’s house or whatever that looks like in that moment. I just had to make sure I had to protect myself, take care of the things I have for the moment, and just keep trying to get through at 11 years old.
Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez: And can we talk a little bit about Banko in terms of the safety? You know, obviously Banko went through the least safe thing you could imagine with the most terrible outcome you can imagine. What was Banko experiencing in terms of safety during this whole process?
Xavier Davenport: Banko was actually experiencing a lot of issues with violence happening in some of the places that he was trying to stay at. Nobody’s perfect, you know, especially when we’re talking about community, right? People have all kinds of issues and trauma that they are that they’re trying to live through as well. I definitely know that there were a few times where, you know, he was upset from violent experiences that had taken place. And what we all do, right, we get upset. We want to do something about it. So, you know, really trying to calm him down to, like, see a different side of it, for him to just move through the trauma that he was experiencing.
Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez: Yeah. And I don’t know how much you all followed kind of the public discussion of what happened to Banko afterwards. A lot of what I heard was a kind of a questioning of like, what did Bianca’s trans identity or black trans identity have to do with the shooting, especially when the security guard themselves was was black. I wonder if you could talk a bit about for people who don’t understand what does Mango’s black trans identity have to do with what brought him there that day and what happened? And whoever wants to jump in idea or something.
Xavier Davenport: Yeah. So this is Xavier or what? What what that all has to do with is when you are a young, black, transmasculine identified person, people see that he walks in, he’s dark skinned, he has a hat on a t shirt, he has a little bit of a like a goatee or, you know, something growing in. And as another black man or being another man, there is a fight for power for who is the man for Banko. You know, the thought process is you look like a little boy or you’re trying to pretend to be a little boy. Because let’s be clear, Banko had not had, you know, top surgery. He had not been going through that part of of medical transitioning. So you have a masculine person with visible breast coming at you. You are going to now struggle for your manhood. I’m going to show you who’s boss is something that for people that are even lesbians who are more masculine looking. There is a struggle between men and any form of masculinity that they can see to them isn’t necessarily real.
Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez: So it’s a it’s like a challenge.
Xavier Davenport: It is a challenge. It very much is a challenge. I know this first experience. I have dealt with this my entire life.
JuJu Pikes-Prince: And if I can just highlight that it’s true. And these are cases that’s not getting covered. And this is Juju speaking of Black Trans Men getting killed.
Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez: I wonder if we can shift a little. I do want to know how that support can come through from family. Are you at a point of acceptance with your family right now and if you could touch on that?
Xavier Davenport: Me and my mother understand what’s happening, but my father and my my siblings that my father has. They’re not. They were only produced by my father. My father’s children. They have a bit of a hard time. And so we don’t necessarily talk the way that people would think family should or relatives should. But, you know, my mother respects who I am. My mother understands what has what has taken place. And she’s accepted that.
JuJu Pikes-Prince: I mean. Then if they’re very understanding our friends there with ties. But when I told my mom everything and broke it down that you don’t want to be a child, right. This kind of anything, you have to take a step back. My father, on the other hand, he’s more big on education. He didn’t. He taught him. He taught me, You don’t care what I do. He wants me to graduate and I’ll ever be like, so-and-so. I got it. You’ve been away. But I still had a heart and I still struggle. Identity came into play. I mean, it was still some some things going on at home. She understood. She knew, like, okay, as long as you’re safe, you know what? The protocols lie, you know, And I love you. I just I want to say this, too, because there was narratives being painted. Banko do have family that do care and love. But there was, you know, at some point everyone went their own ways. So I do want to just that on the record. He did have family that they can’t love, but he was looking for looking for a space. In people’s hearts to fill that void that he has been missing.
Kazani Kalani Finao: This goes on for me. My mother, she told me straight up, like, be you, son. Be you, son. And for me, that’s a fucking privilege. Like, you know, for someone who’s being who they are, like me, like for my mom to just show up right away. How she was able to just accept me. For me, it was just like a restart of our relationship as a as a mother and son. She’s just a gift to me, you know? And so what I’ve been doing with my folks is just like, sharing my mama with them. You know, share my mama with them.
Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez: When you mean to share your mama, do you mean you share your mother with other transpeople who don’t have that?
Kazani Kalani Finao: Trans people, all people, even when they struggle like my mom just signs up like, I love you, I forgive you. And so I share my mama with my folks. And it’s my duty to make sure to create spaces for folks to be themselves.
Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez: What I want to ask you all lastly was about joy, because we’ve been talking about hardship. We’ve been talking about really hard things. But the goal is joy, right? I mean, let’s talk about the mechanical and let’s talk about the heart to the mechanical part is if you had these city leaders who are all talking about what happened to Banko, what would you say needs to change? And then after that, I want you to tell me what your joy looks like.
Xavier Davenport: Yeah, I’ll start this, Xavier. I would say what needs to change is the systems in how they construct homelessness. There needs to be shelters specific for transmasculine folks. There needs to be shelters for trans people, period. But trans men need their own space. There needs to be more black, trans masculine leaders. There’s nobody else that can speak about black transness except for black trans people.
Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez: And how about the joy? What is your joy look like right now?
Xavier Davenport: My joy looks like, you know the rest of the work that I do. The Bay Area Transmasculine calendar is doing a second premiere of a calendar that we started last year with a group of Transmasculine folks to continue to ensure that Transmasculine folks are seen and can receive joy in seeing and having representation of themselves in all bodies, in all forms of trans masculine bodies, and in all forms of trans masculine and different cultures and ethnicities.
Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez: That’s beautiful.
JuJu Pikes-Prince: Did you figuring out the funding, figuring out where money can go to? I definitely believe that there should be more programs for black trans men, even from our community. My film Queens My Doors. We need to serve our queens, our triumph queens if I’m getting emotional. And it’s because I’m thinking about the joy part living and finding purpose. Picking up someone else’s purpose when they couldn’t find their purpose. And knowing that I’m here and I can also at least set some type of story for someone just to save surface and hopefully help another next person, next generation to continue to do this advocacy work.
Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez: Because any changes you want to see and then tell us about your joy.
Kazani Kalani Finao: More action. People need to really start, especially like these politicians. Folks move in and power like really, really start, you know, on the ground and get dirty with us. All the years of just all the years I’ve been living in living in the city, I have not seen nothing that has been pivotal yet, specifically tailored to supporting trans people of color, people that are our natives, the first couple folks that are still here. There’s so many things that we need. So many corporations as are going out to rent something, hotels that’s going to manage or that how do we take those metro shelters, make an independent living for folks without all the stipulations and the requirements, because that’s overwhelming for our people to having to jump through these hoops and things and having to retraumatize ourselves just to get a fucking bed. Come on, now, we’ve got to really redefine what a sanctuary in San Francisco. As for my joy. I really love what you said. You, you know, picking up somebody else’s purpose. And this moment, that’s what it is for me personally. Is it bringing up some of the joys, the joy and the beauty that I learned about Banko and where he was dreaming of envisioning of, and how do you incorporate it not just in the individual people, but in community, in people, in organizations, in how we just do life and learn how to grieve and love myself at the same time. Because I have to say he is not the last person. And so while I’m still here, I’m building on my armor because I’m doing God’s work.
Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez: So would you say that Banko has influenced where your life is going?
Kazani Kalani Finao: I think about his nieces and nephews. I really do every day. I wake up and you say their names and how they’re having a great day in the moment. That’s how I carry you. And that’s what I think of him every day. Because, again, trans people being here and we’re won’t keep coming here. Like it or not, you want to get on board whether you like it or not. We still here? We are forever going to be here. We take care of the village.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: That was KQED reporter Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez in conversation with Xavier Davenport. JuJu Pikes-Prince and Kazani Kalani Finao. Their conversation was cut down and edited by producer Maria Esquinca. It was edited by senior editor Alan Montecillo. The Bay is a production of KQED in San Francisco. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Talk to you next time.
