Other Voices
Good news! The curfew has been lifted! The world no longer stops revolving at sundown! My thoughts on the weekend are forthcoming.
If you haven't filed your taxes yet, shame on you. And I'll see you in the line at the Post Office. Shame on me.
Zappagirl has started her own blog. She wanted to relay that she's not sure how often she'll be updating, but now she has a place to rant.
Today's post is brought to you courtesy of guest speaker Rosencrantz. She wrote this during the first night of curfew, and I am reprinting this with her permission. It's long, but she says everything I want to say about a thousand times better. It deserves as much space as it takes.
Read. React. Pass it along. Karmic Cleanup
After the violence of this past week, I asked myself what can I, as one white thirty year old bohemian woman, possibly do to have any kind of positive effect on the anger, resentment and fear that I see all around me now? But instead of listening to that voice, the one that we all have that tells us that we are powerless as individuals to effect change, I decided to try as hard as I could anyway. Terrible things have already happened and there is nothing that any of us can do to change the past, but there is a bright ray of hope for the future if we can all learn something from what we have just lived through. Bad things happened, but I believe that much good can come of it if we are all willing to set aside our own personal anger, fear, and resentment and become open to the idea that understanding is possible amidst diversity. No one wants violence in their backyard and no one wants to see themselves or their loved ones in danger—on that I think we can all agree. All I have is a simple and personal story, but it is a story about transforming fear and helplessness into equity and hope.
I moved to Cincinnati and lived alone in an apartment in Clifton when I was fifteen so that I could attend college at U.C.. I had grown up on a farm in fairly isolated social conditions and always longed for the sense of community that I had dreamt existed in the city. I did not find that sense of community in Clifton; instead I found first hand violence at the hands of college age white men, and an overwhelming sense of apathy and frustration among many others. I do not and have not watched television for many years and did not have the preconceptions about particular places that many of my peers seemed to possess. As my dreams have always been a higher priority than my pocketbook, I looked in neighborhoods that I could afford that seemed to have potential for the feeling of community I was seeking.
It wasn’t in Western Hills or Price Hill either though I lived in both for a time, so I eventually moved to Madisonville where my soon to be husband owned a home. Yes, we were the only white people in a several block radius, but I didn’t even blink an eye at that nor did any of the neighbors I met here. I had long ago learned that the color of one’s skin says nothing whatsoever about the person inside of it, and would have missed out on many valuable friends if I had allowed ignorance and media endorsed preconceptions cloud what I knew to be true. I loved Madisonville. Everyone on our block knew everyone else, everyone watched out for one another, and all familiar faces would smile and say hello or stop and chat as they walked their dogs past the house. Finally I felt that safe feeling that I had been looking for and never found anywhere else in the city. Some of my less enlightened acquaintances were surprised at my assessment of my new-found haven because (gasp!) isn’t that (glance glance to make sure no one else was listening to their secret racial fears) a black neighborhood? Yes, I informed them, but only the ignorant and scared even notice such things. It’s a community—a word many people these days don’t seem to understand.
The same such people would gasp when I told them that I worked at night in Over the Rhine, and eventually even owned a business for a while in the same locale. When they talked about crime, I talked about the people I had met out on the street who cared about where they lived, who had the same concerns about crime that anyone would have, who loved their children and were happy to see anyone of good will moving into and sharing their neighborhood. Sure, not everyone felt that way, but how many white communities have been leery of blacks in their neighborhood? Those feelings are the result of more years of mistrust than most people today can imagine, but on the other side of that mistrust lies peace for all races, so it is necessary to learn about and understand the diversity of backgrounds from which we all come.
Then, my husband came home from work to that same neighborhood to tell me of a young man who had been shot less than two blocks away from where he had been working. I felt deep sadness at yet another act of violence in a world which already has so much to bear, and I wasn’t a bit surprised to hear of the rally a few days later—I even considered going to show that it isn’t just blacks who are outraged at what appears to be a very dangerous racial prejudice.
And then that violence begat violence as it is often apt to do. I was very upset when I heard what was going on Monday evening, and I thought of all the people in Over the Rhine who did not want more violence and how terrifying it was for them to be so close to so much of it. I spent a worried two days trying to call a retired minister who lived right in the middle of the chaos. We had become friends with him from working in Over the Rhine, and I needed to make sure that he was Ok. I felt sadness to know that there is so much anger perpetuated by this world that people could be overcome by such rage as to randomly assault and terrify others. There is so much anger and fear in the world when what everyone seems to want is peace, happiness, and the freedom to be themselves without fear of persecution. Anger and fear are brought into this world and then passed from person to person like a killing virus which threatens to destroy humanity, either through the destruction of each other or of the planet upon which all of us rely entirely for our lives. Why? And what could anyone possibly do about it that wouldn't just perpetuate more violence?
Then, the next day, I was driving home to the neighborhood I have grown to love so much when twenty or so youths came off of the sidewalk and started to walk behind and in front of our vehicle chanting “get out” at us as we tried to make our way down the last block to our house. I knew what it was like to feel unwanted and unaccepted by people because of the color of my skin, and I have never felt so deeply sorry for all of the atrocities that my race has ever heaped upon another and for which I felt that I was now paying. I understand where those feelings come from, and though they are largely justifiable, hate has never bred anything other than more hate. I was very sad to see that happening. Of course none of the really nice neighbors we have were involved in this at all—these were faces we had never seen on our corner, but their message was very loud and clear nonetheless.
Later that night we heard the sounds of vandalism taking place two blocks from our house on Madison Road and my sadness turned to fear. Then, when I heard a very loud noise from the alley immediately behind our house that sounded like a gunshot, I knew what terror was. Unlike many of the caucasians living in this city, the violence was right outside my door, and even though it passed and my family and I came away completely unharmed, I learned some very valuable lessons in the process.
Violence was no longer some far off abstract possibility—it was right there in my face and it was indeed my problem. It is unfortunate that it had to get that close for me to really notice it, but now that I’ve seen it, it is not Ok with me to just ignore it as though it didn’t happen and go back to “life as usual.” Really negative karma was right there on my doorstep, and somebody had to start cleaning it up, even if what I did could only make the smallest of dents in it.
The days of finger pointing, blaming, or thinking that it is someone else’s problem or something that “doesn’t happen here” are over, and we all need to accept that very quickly or we are doomed to find ourselves in the same situation in the future. There is no reason that we can’t learn to communicate. Real communication must be the goal when dialoging between groups, as opposed to the rhetoric and pass the buck attitudes that have gotten us here in the first place. Social responsibility must stem from personal responsibility—none of us are powerless, we’ve just been socialized to believe that we are. We’ve also been taught to believe that power equals violence or that power means power over someone else, and this does not have to be the case. Mob mentality makes it easy for an individual to avoid having to take personal responsibility for his or her own actions. That kind of mentality also extends to things such as blind acceptance of outdated socially held preconceptions about groups of people who are superficially different from one’s self. We all want peace. We all want freedom. We all want acceptance. We all want safety. Why not start trying to give these things to one another and ultimately ourselves?
Just because the world is this way does not mean that the world has to be this way, but we are the only ones who can change this potential into an actuality. We need to remember that the potential for those things to exist is infinite—we do not have to take it from others in order to have it for ourselves because there is enough for everyone. In a consumer based culture where we are conditioned to believe that money and goods are the only way to achieve happiness, it is no wonder that many of the poor feel like they have almost nothing to lose. The system has been trying to crush the poor for hundreds of years, here and all over the world, and the more that peace and happiness are presented as things that we are told can only be bought (or perhaps don’t exist at all), then of course those in poverty are going to be upset. We can build ridiculous and costly stadiums, but we can’t make sure that all of our citizens have the barest of necessities for survival. What does that say about what this city values? Make more money and look good on television, or make an attempt to end suffering?
If what people want is an end to persecution, they must not persecute others. If what one desires is safety, then it makes no sense to violate the safety of another. If one wants freedom then they have no right to oppress another. There is enough of everything to go around, and the hoarding mentality that we have been taught is “just the way it is” is not the way that it has to be. Those who have power want to keep it. Those who don’t have power want to take it away. This attitude leads to nothing but more and more and more neverending conflict as the perceived rare commodity is jealously guarded, fought over, and stolen, only to have it guarded, fought over, and stolen again at some later date. It is time to stop this madness, and that means you, and me, and every other person who really desires a peaceful existence where we can all grow and flourish together in our own personal ways.
There is a big mess to clean up in this world, and part of that mess is right here in our city. It doesn’t matter who made the mess or who did what to whom first—it is just important that we start cleaning up that mess now before it gets any bigger. Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, look around you and ask, what could I do to clean up part of this mess? Even if someone else made it, if you see it, do what you can to clean it up. No one person or thing is the sole cause of this mess, and we are wasting time trying to find scapegoats to blame for the state that the world is in. Stop worrying about what this person and that person are doing that you disagree with, and start looking in the mirror at something that you really can have an effect upon.
Negativity breeds only negativity, and all negative acts ultimately come back to bite one on the butt when one least expects it. Positive living is very difficult in this society, but it will never be an actuality unless we start pushing toward it now despite any obstacles which may come our way. It doesn’t happen instantly, it doesn’t happen overnight, but it can happen if that is what we as a society really want. On the other hand, if what we choose are violence, destruction, and the perpetuation of hatred, then eventually that will be the only thing left in this world. The last two men on earth will fight to death over whatever is the current power symbol until there is just one man alone saying my god, what have we done to ourselves.
So, you may ask, what can I do as one person to add to the positive in the world instead of feeding the negative with my own soul? Funny you should ask, because an older black gentleman up the street gave me the answer a couple of hours ago. It didn’t cost him anything, he didn’t risk his personal safety, and it only took one small moment of his time.
As I was driving through the intersection for the first time since the youths had shouted at me, I was thinking how sad it was that I no longer felt that happy and natural sense of belonging that I had always felt in my neighborhood. I had reached the point that I was even considering selling the house and moving. Then, not a hundred yards from the corner where I had been told to get out, I saw a man just out taking a walk and enjoying the beautiful spring day. He seemed to be enjoying the day even more since not so long ago it might have been dangerous to be out walking. The ordinary took on the illumination of the extraordinary since normal everyday living had been violently interrupted and threatened only a couple of short days ago. Then he saw me looking, and my own preconceptions kicked in as I feared he would scowl at me in anger or my presence would have interrupted what looked to be a happy occasion.
But that’s not what happened at all. Instead he looked at me with the joy still on his face, the kind of joy experienced when one is reminded that one is still truly and fully alive. He waved, he smiled, completely without resentment or anger. His face was filled with the joy to be alive and have another opportunity to engage in positive interaction with others who are as relieved as he is to be alive and safe. In that moment he gave me back everything that I felt I had lost the other evening, and for that I owe it to him to pass this message on. There is a simple and real pleasure that can be found in the little moments of communication that can occur among all people any time we decide we are ready to reach out to one another with open and giving hands instead of presenting each other with closed fists.
The anger and fear that many people are experiencing right now is highly understandable, but it must be transformed into something positive before anything positive will come of it. It’s not the easy path, but it is the only path that will ultimately work. None of us want to be constrained by anger or fear, and each and every one of us has the power to transform ourselves, and by doing so, transform our communities, cities, country, and the world—but it has to start now and it has to start with you and me.
Once upon a time there was a dream… a dream of equality and brotherhood amongst all people regardless of race or cultural differences, a dream that relied upon non-violence as the only means to reach that end; it is now time for us to make that dream a reality.
Word, sister. Somehow my "Diary of a Curfew" seems very, very lame and trivial.