I find myself very, very, very disturbed by the incident of immolation on Albany Street last week.
I have several reasons for this:
1. I pick up seven or eight children from that immediate block. Right across the street, in fact, from the back entrance to Planned Parenthood. Ages 7 to 14. They tell me they sit on their front porch every day and watch the prostitutes come and go. "They just get in and out of cars all day," says Harmony, the oldest of the group. "Yeah," chimes in Estelle, Harmony's best friend, "We yell from across the street and say my sister and brother are little kids, they shouldn't have to watch this stuff going on." A young man of 15 adds, "They call this section the strip -- it's where all the action is going down. Hookers, drugs, all the junk." Indeed, it is a supermarket of bad decisions and a one-way downhill spiral.
And, of course, children should not have to grow up watching those things going down. Especially during daylight and early evening hours. Sometimes these children feel as if they are watching live- action cartoons, stuff that is not real.
Which brings me to point 2. The difference between reality and fantasy and a general problem with humanity. These children hate those prostitutes. Interestingly enough, they don't hate the johns, their customers. Women in the ghetto are ingrained second-class citizens.
I listen to these children make fun of this woman who was so horribly burned. I listen to it all in my car -- male and female -- laugh and make jokes about crispy critters and barbecue. And then I lose it. "Have you ever burned your finger?" I intone huffily, and one young male proceeds to tell me how much it hurt when he blistered his hand doing something stupid with matches. So we settled in and began to talk about it. "But she called him the N word." Someone said. "Oh," I replied, "I didn't know that calling someone names left you open to torture." We dragged out that good, old word, "RESPECT." We shook it up and examined it from various directions. "So," I said, "the next time you call me names, I get to hit you with a baseball bat?" "Noooo!" They all screamed in ragged unison.
So then we talked about what it meant to be a prostitute. Whether you could sell your body without selling your soul and what makes a person go on the block like that. There was once a wonderful rap song written about a hooker, and the hook was, "For you it's a fun night out, but for me, it's my life." We hoped that prostitutes felt only as if they were renting out parts of their body; rent but not to own, we said.
We talked about crack and the terrible hold it has on people. We talked about people who used people and never paid them what they owed. "Where's the respect in that?" I said. "That is like stealing," and we all nodded and agreed. We talked about the 14-year-old girls we know who are turning tricks. "Maybe they're not really so nasty," someone said. "Maybe they are just hungry and cold. We talked about condoms and disease and loneliness and misery.
Someone told the story of their mother trying to set fire to their stepfather because he cheated on her. "She doused him with lighter fluid and chased him down the road and kept flicking lit matches at him, only they wouldn't stay lit." There was silence. Complete stillness. Children should not have to see this -- any of this -- sub-human behavior.
I watched a local TV channel do a story about this case, and quietly cheered when I heard how the neighborhood came forward and helped solve this case. "Yes." I said "Yes" again. One young man responded thusly -- TV reporter, "But she called him the N word." The young man's response, "If you have a problem, you call 911 -- This is a civilized country, and that's a civilized response."
And inwardly, I cheered again. I am so tired of that same old, same old. "But I have to live in this neighborhood, I have to protect myself."
And I think, of course you do. And the way to protect yourself is to draw that little line in the sand and stand up and say "ENOUGH!" And then another says, "I got your back." And then another says, "There will be no more garbage in my neighborhood."
And someone else says, "After all, I have to live here." And then someone says, "And so do I and so do my children," and on and on. A strong neighborhood working with each other, and the police and the community. Street by street, block by block. That's the way to build a community. That's the way to be responsible, that's what gives us self-respect and ownership of ourselves, our friends and our neighborhoods. Take back the night. This cannot be a one-night stand; it has to be an everyday responsibility. A candle in the window, a flashlight on the street, garbage picked up, flowers growing, sun shining, block parties. We can change that violent video into a Disney smiley face.
Also, it seems as if our expensive video cameras are never working or facing the wrong direction or not being checked regularly or are haunted by little green men (or women, or both) because, again, they did not pick up the action or any of the other prostitution junk that happens up and down that area. Hmmm, malfunction at which end, please?
Contec again is laying off workers. Last week it laid off 132 people. This is a company right in the middle of our poorest area, hiring workers mainly from that area, with decent wages. Where is this city on this one? This is a small company that hires locally and trains and pays fairly. We herald Bombers for 40 jobs, but this company has laid off 132 good-paying jobs and still has workers left over. No contest here. My money goes with employment, not downtown chi-chi. But again, maybe I am only a woman, so I don't understand.
