i just finished reading this
and watching this
please, watch it before you finish reading this.
i'll wait.
i'm confused. hurt. ignorant. privileged. struck silent
she said “I wish that all these people, particularly from out of town, would just leave us alone and let us improve our city.” and i wonder about motives. i know i've been struggling lately with this - i want to help my black people. in my mind, i see poor black children. i want them to have the same opportunities as the kids at my current school. but then i go, and i wonder if i have it all wrong. if i should let them shape their own dream. if they don't need help. maybe this is their life and they are happy here.
i know when i was growing up, i didn't think i was poor. no, we didn't buy hella expensive clothes, but that taught me morals and values that i think a lot of my kids at M- miss out on this.
poverty isn't a good thing. but the values it teaches you are (?)
then i cruise home from P-A- and pass all these young black boys on the street. hoodies. swagger. posted. who am i to think that they are all thugs? when did i begin to buy into the stereotypes of my people?
with all this diversity, are the problems still the same?
people ask what happen to the civil rights movements of the 60s. time. time happened to them - it doesn't make sense to protest with marches when you can reach more people on youtube.
if the fight has changed, what happened to the problem? is it the same?
all this convoluted rambling to get to this: i have always been fascinated with the projects. in school, in the media, it was where REAL black people lived. it was the epitome of Blackness - scary, hidden, dark, sequestered away from mainstream yet the subject of study by the masses.
but in my personal life, i knew people from there. i've been there. never lived there, but i saw something different - a sense of community. people repping sets. violence was comparable to views of racism in the north and south- like the south, race, like violence, was visceral and flagrant. not to say there wasn't violence elsewhere in the city, but it was hushed in the daily news, like racism in the north - its virulent, but quietly avoided so that you just remain in a state of paranoia - was that racist? or was it because i am young? or a woman? was s/he just having a bad day?
and n.o. wants to tear them down. part of me says sure, people shouldn't have to live stacked on each other. we already see that projects don't work for so many reasons - give subsidies to people and build houses - let them rent-to-own so they have ownership over their pieces. a neo-40 acre and a mule promise.
but another side questions my motives - do i have a right to give a go ahead to knock down houses? would this be happening in a richer part of town? do i even have a right to speak with all this privilege surrounding me?
why did rebuilding take so long to reach this part of town anyways? its been damn near two years. but they can still have mardi gras 6 months after the hurricane.
why do i have so many questions and not enough answers?
do you ever have the thoughts in your head but lack the words to accurately express them? there is so much missing from this - the cadence, the shadows and bass notes that only feelings and pictures can capture.thats the problem - i get to have a voice, and they - the project residents, the boys in the hoodies, the kids in my P-A- classroom - don't. and damn - mine isn't even all that loud yet.
