Won't You Be My Neighbor?

Its only 9AM and already sticky-hot. Every window in my apartment is slammed open but still there is no movement, no air. Its not even August yet and my movements are already labored and slow. It’s as if the atmosphere is so thick that, like in water, it takes all your energy just to move through it. As much as I am used to North East heat nothing quite compares to the mixture of car fumes and steam as it rises sizzling off the sidewalks and concrete buildings of a city, though at least the neighborhood is silent.

Unlike many of the major neighborhoods in NYC and Brooklyn, my neighborhood shuts down on the weekends in the most peculiar way- on one side of my street things are quiet Saturdays on the other its Sundays. This, I’m sure, has to do with the division between Hasidic Jews on one side and Christians on the other. And as testament to that, along with the quiet and as the sun sets each weekend day you see alternately:

men with curls and large black hats holding the hands of their wives in skirts and head scarves as their children run ahead in yarmulkes screaming at the top of their lungs at having lost the race.

deeply wrinkled elderly African American women walking in groups of two or three in bright pink, yellow, and blue skirt suits with the most ornate lace, tulle, and faux flower topped Sunday best hats you may ever see in your life.

Occasionally on a given Sunday you will also see these two groups entrenched in some sort of parade through the neighborhood. On one particular Sunday I was privy to a group of entirely male Hassid’s dancing and singing their way down the street behind a float of a giant crown that was turning and blaring music ahead of them. On another day I woke to hearing drums and horns making their way down the main street followed by elderly African American men in those straw hats seen so much around the 1940’s in political campaigns, women in that same Sunday garb moving tightly from side to side, and a casket topped with flowers being brought by four young African American men in suits. This neighborhood indeed has its own character.

The thing that saddens me about this neighborhood though is that not too long ago a major section of it was declared historic. While that works to preserve some of the buildings and the like, ultimately what it tends to be is a looming indicator of gentrification- for that matter so am I. The thing of it is that gentrification can occur in several ways from what I understand. By proclaiming a neighborhood historic what ultimately happens is it becomes increasingly difficult for the current landlords to make changes and improvements to their buildings without going through the proper community boards and historic societies. The cost of renovating a building so that it maintains its historic status and manner gets higher and higher with all the approval needed and all the mandates for type and quality of improvement increasing. Eventually landlords currently there cannot afford to maintain their buildings to historic standards and thus sell them off to wealthier and oftentimes whiter individuals and businesses.

Another way it occurs is this: since the real estate market in a given community is, in part, based on the crime demographics, statistics, and crime projections for the population of that community, and since crime demographics, statistics and crime projections are often heavily skewed to equate poverty with crime, blackness with poverty, and blackness with crime, when African Americans are in a neighborhood the property value remains low( read that again if you’d like, but it is an unfortunately true and terribly racist fact). When African Americans move to a neighborhood the property value actually lowers, and when whites move into a neighborhood it effectively goes up. When young white cheap rent hunters start to move to these neighborhoods this in turn allows the landlords to charge more for rent, effectively pushing out the lower income population which does tend to be African American - an unfortunate truth given the racism still rife in employment and education. This changes the neighborhood makeup toward a whiter population who can oftentimes afford more simply based on the fact that their pay scale is higher than that of the average African American. It begins with whites who produce high turnover for the neighborhood- namely young, single, trend seeking whites who move into and out of neighborhoods based on where the cheapest rent is. They locate the relatively lower income-but-on-the-rise neighborhoods and move on in. Being fresh out of college and on the job market they are making less than their older counterparts, but more than the majority of their African American counterparts and as such can afford to rent out more space for less people. This even has the effect of pushing out middle income families who are renting primarily because when landlords see young whites they remember the adage about the property value increase and work to actually push out many established families who may or may not be making them less money than the single white person. When they new group begins to earn more and populate the neighborhood, more shops, restaurants, and the like pop up to cater to their needs/wants over the needs and wants of the previous community. At this point the community can go one of several ways- it can either continue to grow as a den of commerce and work itself into a demographically white focused shopping/ dining area with a primarily singular population or it can blossom from a high turn over single white neighborhood into a neighborhood for young white families as they stay, procreate, and increase their level of income, or it can do a little of both.

Either way its clear what can happen and it is of significance that as my paragraph wore on my discussion of the lower middle class to middle class African Americans in the community faded out. The fact of the matter is that the majority get priced out and then demographically and socially weeded out. Its an unfortunate and very real cycle and as I sit here in my over heating apartment somewhere directly between the two much older and much better established communities I know for a fact- and have since the day I made the choice to move here- that I am part of this process. I am a young, single, white, woman who moved into this neighborhood because the rent was cheaper than the neighborhood I left. I moved into a spacious 1 bedroom apartment once inhabited by an African American wife and husband and their small child. Where two incomes once supported this apartment one now does and my landlord knows that where there is one young white person to fill a rent slot more can and probably will come.

So I guess the thing I grapple with when I begin this train of thought is what can I do about it? Do I move to a neighborhood I cannot afford? Do I move out of the city entirely so as to avoid the generally high prices that are rampant throughout? Do I make a concerted effort to support the businesses that are currently here so as to assist, in whatever tiny way, in the continuation of this neighborhood as is? The last is what I choose to do and yet I feel that it’s still not enough. I work and live in this community, shop as much as possible here, and try like hell not to be imposing about my needs and wants, but just as being only one person I did not create the gentrification process in this neighborhood, being only one person I cannot stop it. All I can do is live here, maintain my awareness, and work with what my community gives me- one side of the street shut down on Saturdays the other on Sundays and a whole lot of other fascinating little differences in between.

If you can make it Here?

Earlier this week there was a taxi cab parked in my back yard. Every Friday a siren goes off throughout the neighborhood at 8pm sharp and lasts for about a minute to 2 minutes. I looked up to see a star the other day but all I could make out was a satellite. Sometimes I get very worn out on the concept of New York .

A lot of the time I look at it like a challenge to live in NYC. I think its a fascinating place with tons of people from all over and tons of opportunity to experience whatever it is you want to experience, but more often than not I'm tired of getting cat calls in my neighborhood, I'm tired of getting jostled on busy streets and actively avoiding certain streets because they are so riddled with tourists stopping and staring upward, making it so that you can't get through. I'm exhausted by the filth that deposits itself on my windows and my lungs, I'm tired of being in steamy smelly subway stations and smelling urine on any given street corner.

So what is it that keeps me here? Maybe its a desire to prove myself, maybe its stubbornness in not wanting to move yet again, and not being sure where I'd want to go anyway, but beyond all this, sometimes I think part of me looks at it this way: If I can find peace in NYC then maybe I can find peace wherever it is I decide to go. Maybe if I can meet this challenge everything else will be a lot easier to handle and a lot less scary for me. Or maybe its something else...

I had a client this evening tell me that he was sure I grew up with rose bushes and little puppy dogs and a nice house. He said he felt like I couldn't understand him becuase while I grew up like that, he grew up in 1970's New York with broken bottles and pit bulls. Maybe in a way thats what I'm trying to understand about this place. New York has become such a mockery of itself, such a Disney Land for grown-ups that maybe I'm trying to stay here to figure out what it means to have grown up that way, to be born in a place that has seen such opposing sides of the spectrum, and to understand that pull that New York has on so many people, residents and tourists alike- myself included. New York, if nothing else, is a fascinating social experiment for the simple fact that you have the uber rich and the utterly poor all within the same city and you have so many different and oftentimes opposing cultures living in such close proximity, yet they all somehow manage to coexist. What I want to know is how and why.

I don't think anywhere else on the planet is quite like NYC and I think that That- regardless of all the sexual harassment, garbage, extravagance, and over the top capitalism- is what keeps me here. At least until I have a somewhat satisfying answer to my how and why...or grow tired of trying to figure it all out.

Dakar, Senegal

Whew, this is a tough one for me. Senegal is both beautiful and horrible at the same time. Give me a chance to explain and hopefully by the end you’ll understand why. The second I set foot on the plane in Belgium which was going to Senegal, I had an inkling I wasn’t in Kansas anymore. The plane was literally full (save one French family and myself) of African men all above six feet tall, all dressed in standard Muslim attire, and all speaking a language that was not French, not English, and not anything I could figure out based on a similarity to another language I’d heard, it was mostly Wolof. When I got to the airport in Senegal, it was still their warm season, which means heat so heavy it lays on you like a damp wool blanket, and you sweat while your taking an ice cold shower, even the shaded areas were painfully hot. There were tons of people milling about speaking something between French and Wolof, and they all wanted to take my bags and help me through customs. They were so intent on helping me that they refused to let me through customs in just any old fashion, I had to give them larger and larger sums of money in order that they not turn me over to the officials, for what reason I was never sure. Once outside I had the same treatment, my ride was not there(they expected me later), and my phone card, which is apparently the common case, did not work there. I refused to change money with so many people around and such seemingly relaxed security, so I made friends with one of the porters and he helped me out with the calling and getting my ride there. Here I should mention, there are distinct personalities in Senegal, those who take you in care for you, treat you like your one of their family members, and those who see you as nothing but a tourist and imagine you have buckets full of money just waiting to be handed out. Unfortunately the problem is, no matter how little money you think you have, you do have more than them by a significant amount, so how can you really tell them otherwise? Yeah, complicated situation to be in. That’s how it is in Senegal though, lots of great people who would never ask anything of you, will help you with anything and everything you want or need, and will never complain to you about the actually quite severe problems they have going on in their lives, and then lots of people looking for you to help them because your white and you speak English or French, so they think you can automatically and continuously give and give and give with no end. It would be nice if you could, and oftentimes I felt myself trying while I was there, but the thing to remember is that no matter what you give it can never be enough, they will always be wanting, they will always be suffering, so you must do as much as you can and as much as you feel right doing, and be able to let it go after that. Not as easy as it might sound.

I lived in Suffolk’s housing there during my stay, in an apartment off campus with several other students from a variety of African countries. I had chosen Senegal, not only because it was a third world country that may not have the type of funding richer European countries would (which would mean their programming for the homeless mentally ill would either be scant, non-existent, or at least creatively implemented), but also because of the significance of the family in African societies and because it was one of the few African countries that I was sure had a mental hospital to begin with, and in my mind, it was a little safer than others at the time which were suffering from uprisings and much anti-American sentiment based on who they thought Americans were, and the view they believed American had of Muslims after September 11th. That being said then I didn’t expect to find much, but I did expect to find something, and there was something, not much, but something.

A lot about my findings and a lot about Senegal in general made me feel like someone was holding me upside down and all the blood was rushing to my head. I felt dizzy and nervous and like I had everything in life from my perceptions to the way I ate my breakfast all totally wrong. Its hard to really explain just how different Senegal is, but just to give a few external examples, when you eat fish, mostly it’s the whole fish- eyes, teeth, gills, scales, it smiles at you in fact, when you eat with a family you eat out of a communal bowl and you eat with your hands, they laugh if you use utensils. Frequently the family will push all the portions of meat to your side of the bowl so that you as the guest get the “best” parts, if you’re a vegetarian its awkward but for me personally when that happened I took it and ate it, whatever the meat was regardless of the fact that I'm strict vegetarian- I didn’t want to offend someone who was giving me the largest part of what little they have. Beyond this and more subtle perhaps, is the fact that when someone calls you brother or sister they mean it. I lived with 19 of my closest brothers and sisters while I was there, you share everything- when you have food to eat you make sure you have enough for everyone in the room or you don’t eat it, you don’t need to ask to use their things- just use them and tell the person you’re using them( I always asked and I recommend asking, but I got that treatment from them), you mock and tease each other, if you had a mother to run to with complaints about how this one pulled your hair you just might do it- that’s how close you are. Its like nothing you’ve ever felt and nothing you will ever feel again, especially because you do get so close and then you know you have to leave them and go back to your posh American life style and leave them to their baobab juice, sandaled feet and hotter than hell African sun. It was because of this I started to hate myself in a way. I cried at least once a week out of joy and sadness over this fact, I wept like a tiny baby with one of the best friends and brothers I ever made the day I left and he cried right along with me telling me I had to go, that I couldn’t save Africa on my own and I couldn’t choose to live the way they live when I have so many other opportunities open to me.

That’s the thing about Africa, or at least Senegal, its raw emotion, when you get right down to it there is no mistaking the love and hate that exists there (I also got stones thrown at me my last day there). You know how people feel, they may not say it but they don’t have to, you can see it, and they are strong, man are they strong. Even the people who are trying to just take your money because they think your only a tourist, even the people who insist upon calling you toubab (white person) when they know your name, there is a strength and a good will there that cannot be mistaken. They mean you no harm, they are just trying to get by and you might just be the way they can do that. They’ve seen more hurt and pain and hunger than anyone I’ve ever met and they still greet you with a smile. I had neighbors who lived down our dirt road inside literally four aluminum walls with a tin roof and a blanket as a door, I never saw them eating but when they did they always offered some to me with huge grins, they wanted me to come eat with them and share in their wealth. Its almost disturbing because you expect them to break down, to hate life, but they don’t, as many of the doctors I talked to said when I asked them how people get by “god is their insurance”… “if you see a man with a broken down barely working car and ask him why he has such a car, he will say god is great and that is why” because at least he has a car, not too many others can say that.

Speaking of cars another thing of note about Senegal is their transportation system. There are buses with fixed rates but they don’t come too often, there are car rapides which technically have a fixed rate for a certain distance but if you don’t know it your in trouble, and the taxis will try to charge you whatever they think they can get, typically 2/3rds as much as you should be paying,( same price hike incidentally with souvenir vendors and other vendors unless they are within the concrete walls of a shop, which you don’t see too much of, the markets are all open and out on the street).

The thing about the culture that most people at home don’t get is that its not what your geography books or history books would have you believe. Your not living off lizards and running with gazelles (in fact Senegal has no real wildlife except stray goats and horses and yes tons and tons of lizards, get used to seeing them in the shower). There are pizza joints and clothing stores and internet cafes, its just that people have sacrificed other things in order to have these amenities. You might find someone who hasn’t eaten for a week to buy their son or daughter the latest shoes. That’s just how it goes sometimes there. There are even night clubs, hell we had a party at my apartment almost every weekend just to let off steam and celebrate being able to celebrate. Most of us didn’t have enough money to celebrate but when we pooled all our funds we came up with enough to be happy over and that’s how it goes at least on Suffolk’s campus. If you go out into the country you find things very different though, people are just sitting around because there is nothing else to do, no jobs, no really good farm land, and children are barefoot, have reddened hair and dried out scalps from malnutrition, spots where their mothers cut away their hair because they got ring worm.

Don’t get me wrong though there are beautiful things and places in Senegal, the beaches are pure and wonderful, you can watch the fisherman drag in their catches from their longboats, there is a beautiful lake called Lac rose which is pink and 10 times as salty as the ocean( a little touristy in one section and in another section it’s a work place, they mine salt from the lake to sell). There is Gorree island which is where all the slaves from Africa were shipped first in order to be sorted, and its got magnificent trees and flowers and water and sand and houses and you wonder how anyone could live there now but they do, I saw it as a kind of a triumph over the terrifying past of the island. To see some of these things like Gorree and the slave houses on it, they will charge you more because, as they tell you quite honestly, it’s the price for white people. And sometimes it seems wrong and becomes angering, but at the same time they make so little anywhere else, can you really blame them, and after all it was our European ancestors fault that the island is associated with what it is. Maybe it’s just a small bit of justice, least that’s how I see it. Speaking of money matters, just to put it briefly I took $700 dollars with me, I paid my translator $100 dollars for my interviews(as no one really speaks English) and I left with $100 still in my pocket, all told that sounds like about $500 used while I was there, and I bought a lot of souvenirs for people and (permanently) lent people money while I was there. I never wanted.

There is just so much to say about Senegal, this doesn’t cover half of it. Ask me about the little girls who would always stare and smile, the ones who were happy just touching my hair, putting it behind my ear for me, shaking my hand, touching my skin (in the more rural areas the little ones don’t see whites too often). Ask me about celebrating the end of Ramadan(Senegal is primarily Muslim) with a friend of mine and her family, or my choice to wear a kerchief upon my head on the Muslim Sabbath (Fridays). Ask me how none of my male friends approved of my going out at night on my own and always wanted to escort me. So much happened that I hated and so much happened that I loved, I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything, ever. Its something you need to see and take in with your own two eyes. I had a lot of difficulty the first few weeks I was there because things didn’t make sense, things didn’t seem fair, things didn’t seem to jibe with the way the rest of the world operated, but in order to really see Africa you must open your heart wide, as wide as you can and just accept it all. If you try and exist there without opening your heart it will break you open and tear you apart, if you see it with your heart and not just your eyes and/or American perceptions of the way things should be, Africa will stay with you forever, it will be you brother, sister, mother and father, it will take you in, albeit occasionally begrudgingly, and it will never let you go. There are certain smells and sounds that will forever be etched in my head as Africa, certain people I met whom I couldn’t remove from my heart if I tried with all my might, and I am grateful for every millisecond, every person who handed me a kind hello or a resentful truth. It is an experience that turns your world on its head and leaves it there for a good long time.

Hello

So I moved to this site from posting on myspace, though I'm not exactly sure what inspired the move. I think it had something to do with not wanting to lose all my postings should I ever decide to get rid of my myspace account.

I guess we'll see if I like this site better to post to- no promises, though.

Tonight I was planning to write something well thought out about my recent feelings on various topics, but after deciding to create this and bringing all my old stuff over I'm a little tired and frankly a little sick of my own words.

I think maybe tonight I'll put an old write up I did on here. Once someone asked me to write on my experience of living in Africa and I did, and I think it came out alright if barely informative.

Lets see if I can't search it out on this machine and throw it on here.

I guess if I can't find it you'll know because there wont be two posts this evening. Deal?

Disgust

Can I just say that I'm completely infuriated at the decision by George Bush to commute the sentence of Mr. Libby? In his quotation in all the papers he's noted as saying he thought that the 30 month imprisonment sentence was excessive. What I would like to know is when he believed he acquired the law degree to give him the credibility to say that. Its an outrage that he would make an effort to interject in anyway in a case in which he himself has been implicated as having some questionable involvement, its an outrage that he would so blatantly place himself above the law of the land-there is a system of checks and balances for a purpose, and what I expect to be the most outrageous thing about it will be the way democrats and republicans, while they are making a stir now, will inevitably roll over for him on this issue and it will die just as every other severely agregeous act he's committed has died. Its disgusting and disgraceful and it makes me ashamed to live in this country. Most people who know me know that I don't suffer fools gladly and while I have been hesitant to denounce the entire country-government and all- because of things about it being somewhat positive, this is quite possibly the straw that has broken the camels back. How can anyone stand by and pretend that this is sane? How can anyone stand by and pretend our human rights and our rights as citizens of the united states are not being violated and being violated in plain view with flagrant digregard to any basic code of ethics? This government and this administration infuriate me to no end.How can we as citizens stand by and take this? How can we say this is acceptable? Or even, that its not acceptable but that we are going to wait until he's out of office? He should be impeached and should have been a long time ago for all the atrocities he's committed. How can we sit in our homes, continuing to live our misinformed little lives and say that that man, that disgrace to humanity, is taking care of this country in the way he ought?
I mean seriously, is this how we've always been? Have we, as a people, really been so ignorant, self serving, disgraceful and dishonest? Who in the hell are we, who have we become?
I guess its a very sad day for someone like myself who has always tried to maintain such faith in humanity and the inherent good in people to realize that this country has no backbone left if it ever had one.