(no subject)
I wish I knew where to dig within myself to find my motivation... I've lost it and can't seem to find it. There are so many things I want to do... so many changes I still have to make... so many goals to reach. And I'm finding it terribly difficult to do without some force behind it.
I've grown frustrated in the last week or so. I hate being told or made to feel that I am naive to go down South and help fellow people, fellow citizens, fellow fucking human beings get back on their feet. I am sick to death of people telling me that those people deserved it, that they never worked a day in their lives and now do not deserve a dime or a minute of help. I am SO fucking sick to death of it. I am so fucking sick of the damn right-winged assholes, family or not, telling me people like me are a waste on the country. I am SO FUCKING SICK. PERIOD. Honestly. Like I need to be discouraged any more so than I and anyone else who has been alongside me down there already are. Nobody fucking understands up here... Going in March and having an amazing experience and leaving with purpose and hope only to return to a place that looks EXACTLY the same as it did months before and wonder what the fuck any of your effort and time really means in the scheme of things... wastes of time. I still won't believe that. But it's a thought that gets us all down.
Before the trip: we wonder if the only week we can sacrifice from our summer is going to make a difference... and really knowing it won't be a huge contribution but that it's still something...
During the trip: none of our work seems to matter. So what if you help three plots of property? Big fucking deal... What difference does it make when the rest of the city still looks like a warzone, where people are still living out of the trunks of their vehicles as their local emergency centers start to stop operation one by one. What the fuck does it all matter??? What the fuck does it all matter when we get gawked at and told to get the fuck out of their neighborhoods because of the color of our skin... where we get guns pulled on us because we just don't fucking belong down there. Because they don't want our help. Because when did they ever get help before?? What has America ever done for them before?? What has America done for them now?? Absolutely fucking nothing. "Let the evil be washed away with the hurricane" they say. "Let the next one wash away all the debris left behind" they say. FUCK AMERICA. I am SO FUCKING SICK OF THIS GODDAMNED COUNTRY. Fucking arrest me for saying it. Trace my address and arrest me and call me a fucking threat to America. "Fucking liberals" you'll say. You fucking asshole. I am SO FUCKING SICK. What will it take to open your close-minded, ivy-league "educated", douche-bag eyes and see that there are fucking HUMAN BEINGS in your own godforsaken country that need some help... who were dealt a stroke of SHITTY SHITTY luck. FUCK YOU who say that they don't work. People don't work here in the North and they live off of welfare and what do you do?? FUCK YOU. ALL of the residents I have met down there were working before the hurricane, whose ancestors worked hard decades and decades before in the same area... who now have to work three fucking jobs and keep their faith in their God and keep the hope alive within their families that the city won't fucking bulldoze their home and that the organization will keep it's word and help start rebuild a 75 year-old woman's home... FUCK YOU WHO SAY THEY DESERVE THIS SHIT. FUCK YOU. These people are nothing but grateful for any MINIMAL bit of support from young people who live 24 hours away... and we start to realize we do make a bit of difference. Because we hear the stories of the residents. We get the support from those we encounter and work alongside. Yes, not everyone is welcoming. No, it is not a safe place to be going down to help... I know this. My friends know this. And we don't care. Because we have seen the hurt in their eyes. I have seen the tears of a 75 year old woman as she told me how race relations got out of hand at the hotel she had fled to when the hurricane hit and was forced out of the hotel... and her son carried her on his back through God knows how many feet of toxic flood water to their home miles away so they could wait on her roof to be airlifted to some sort of safety. I have seen the exasperation of a wealthy doctor who lost everything in the flood and yet gives spaces to volunteer organizations for them to use and takes care of residents when they need it. I have seen the much needed relaxation of a 45 year old contractor who had a breakdown after Katrina and is just recovering... who was so thankful to spend the day with us "white people" on the beach in Mississippi- nowhere near out of sight of destruction (in fact, right in the midst of devastation) and have his phone off and just walk peacefully along the Gulf for a few hours. I have seen the homeless. I have seen the children "playing"... no schools to attend, toys are all gone, parents can't find jobs. I have seen people "enjoy" the last free meal offered at an emergency community... only to have to return to scrounging for something as their homes sit many feet away from where they used to in the Lower 9th Ward... where it feels like the houses remain untouched as a spectacle for outsiders but that will never be shown on television. Where there's a fucking "You Can't Beat Bert's Meat" sign still in the exact spot it was in front of the house that is sitting practically in the street... hasn't moved one inch since March. Why should it move? Why should we mend our hearts and lives? Let's see the spectacle of that very house that juts out into the street, its insides coming out from the front, its curtains still hanging perfectly... its chandelier, destroyed, but still hanging on while the outside wall tells people within the "X" that, yes, a person died in this very HOME when the levee broke... R.I.P. the wall reads... make-shift memorial flower arrangements hang from the outside... the distinct smell of death and destruction, dust and disease in every breath you take... Take your pictures. I am guilty of this. Show them to people at home. Think that this will affect them the same way it affected you without any success. They'll never understand. And you want to cry. Because this could have been anyone. Black, white, yellow, fucking cyan blue... it doesn't matter. Because unlike us, nature doesn't discriminate. Anyone, anywhere. And what would it take for the government to give two shits? For citizens to give two shits past saying "oh those poor people.."
It's back to fucking basics for those people --- trying to secure food and shelter... convenience stores and the Home Depot are their only shopping options... While we, in a hypothetical situation, will sit eating our value meals in front of our plasma screens watching CNN tell us that nothing has changed in the South and that people are still deserving of support... but don't worry-- because you will NEVER fucking see that happen.
So let me be discouraged down there because I didn't get to work alongside many residents this time around... instead we had to build a volunteer site. Why, you ask? Because volunteer sites are being lost and taken away. What does that mean? Volunteers can't come down to N.O. unless they're staying in some Marriott downtown... so volunteers have to be turned away. Can the region afford to turn volunteers away? Absolutely not. If minimal progress has been achieved with volunteers so far, nothing good will come of turning them away... So in the long run, we did make an impact on the city. Now volunteers are currently being housed there less than one week later. They've gutted a few schools since then. Ten people in their young 20s, in seven days, created a solid center of solidarity in the wicked heat. An impact was made.
But ask me how many beads I earned while I was down there... please. Ask me how we distracted ourselves from the devastation after work hours... (I did see the "attractions" because I do believe it is necessary to see the culture and legacy you are fighting to save from fading off... ) ... to distract me from telling you what's really going on down there. Because you don't want to hear the truth. You don't like to hear the truth... because when I start to speak it, you get uncomfortable. You shift in your seats... you look at other things... you change the subject... you cut me off. You don't want me bringing you down. And as I try to put into words what I have seen and experienced in my short lengths of stay in New Orleans, my mind reels and reels and fails to articulate how I really feel, how things really truly are on the surface and below it... It's okay--- I only picked beads up off the street (the other girls weren't in the mood for a group flashing. maybe next time). And don't worry.. I didn't get trashed. I didn't ho it up. Sorry to disappoint you with my lack of exciting stories. I'll refrain from boring you with my stories of escaping getting shot and getting called at and having random questionable encounters with people coming over the railroad tracks to check on us.. Don't worry--- things were nice and peaceful. We didn't need to lock the gates. Walked around as we pleased... Really, it's okay. Talk to me like you know what's going on down there because you read the news... Criticize me because you think you know how it is... how people are... how the situation unfolded it and your perfect plan for a quick-fix... Keep on talking like you know it all.... like this happens all the time... especially to you. So you most definitely know what you are talking about.
Then tell me to focus on the local area... because our people need it, too. Well, no shit, Sherlock. But it's funny- you obviously don't fucking know me. Because I volunteer in Buffalo all the time. All year round... I've devoted myself to it. That doesn't make me special. That doesn't give me an excuse to shrug off Buffalo for now... but you have no right to tell me to put my priorities in check... because I have my priorities straight. Some people do not. And so others must compensate. And when you are given a calling, you are given a calling. And you go. And I went. And fuck you for telling me that it's someone else's job to fix things down there. I don't see anyone else doing much. Some people need to lead for others to follow. And fuck you because I am not following anymore.
Fuck you when you tell me it's more important to stay here and focus on my own life... let me be self-absorbed and unhappy. Let's care only about ourselves... well thank you very much but I am privileged enough to have a roof over my head, a car that I do not live out of but drive myself to my two jobs with, and go to a good school. Should I feel like I am selfish for having all of those things? Maybe not... up here I am not one of the elite. My family is working class, not middle class. We don't go on family vacations and we don't live in a nice new house in the suburbs. But my life is comfortable enough for me to know that I am so lucky to live the life that I live. So stop telling me to worry about myself. I'll worry about myself when it's necessary. Yes, I have to make money. But I despise it. And if I didn't need it, I would be THERE not HERE listening to people bitch about their pathetic, so over-dramatic lives, parking tickets, and the fact that whipped cream is 50 cents extra. Oh my God, let's sit and bitch about my nail color and the bitchy woman who painted them and then oh my god, how can I owe $560 of parking tickets? I'm lying through my teeth when I say I never received a single one and never received a single one of the twenty warnings you sent me in the mail over the past 12 years... please remove those tickets or my attorney will be calling soon... and oh my god, whipped cream and nuts cost extra? this is a TRUE American travesty!
All of our lives suck. We all have tragedy. Yes. It's a fact. But must we be so goddamned selfish? It's not our fault.. we are blinded from the truth. This is America. And we are not all bad people. No, most of us are decent people. But we are governed by a bunch of scumbags. And our media lies.
And don't you fucking dare call me a fucking liberal hippy. I am the farthest thing from one of the guitar-playing, sit on my ass all day and talk about the woes of the world in my super-fake folk singer accent and paint signs all day about solidarity and washing our hands hippies. FUCK no.
I've grown frustrated in the last week or so. I hate being told or made to feel that I am naive to go down South and help fellow people, fellow citizens, fellow fucking human beings get back on their feet. I am sick to death of people telling me that those people deserved it, that they never worked a day in their lives and now do not deserve a dime or a minute of help. I am SO fucking sick to death of it. I am so fucking sick of the damn right-winged assholes, family or not, telling me people like me are a waste on the country. I am SO FUCKING SICK. PERIOD. Honestly. Like I need to be discouraged any more so than I and anyone else who has been alongside me down there already are. Nobody fucking understands up here... Going in March and having an amazing experience and leaving with purpose and hope only to return to a place that looks EXACTLY the same as it did months before and wonder what the fuck any of your effort and time really means in the scheme of things... wastes of time. I still won't believe that. But it's a thought that gets us all down.
Before the trip: we wonder if the only week we can sacrifice from our summer is going to make a difference... and really knowing it won't be a huge contribution but that it's still something...
During the trip: none of our work seems to matter. So what if you help three plots of property? Big fucking deal... What difference does it make when the rest of the city still looks like a warzone, where people are still living out of the trunks of their vehicles as their local emergency centers start to stop operation one by one. What the fuck does it all matter??? What the fuck does it all matter when we get gawked at and told to get the fuck out of their neighborhoods because of the color of our skin... where we get guns pulled on us because we just don't fucking belong down there. Because they don't want our help. Because when did they ever get help before?? What has America ever done for them before?? What has America done for them now?? Absolutely fucking nothing. "Let the evil be washed away with the hurricane" they say. "Let the next one wash away all the debris left behind" they say. FUCK AMERICA. I am SO FUCKING SICK OF THIS GODDAMNED COUNTRY. Fucking arrest me for saying it. Trace my address and arrest me and call me a fucking threat to America. "Fucking liberals" you'll say. You fucking asshole. I am SO FUCKING SICK. What will it take to open your close-minded, ivy-league "educated", douche-bag eyes and see that there are fucking HUMAN BEINGS in your own godforsaken country that need some help... who were dealt a stroke of SHITTY SHITTY luck. FUCK YOU who say that they don't work. People don't work here in the North and they live off of welfare and what do you do?? FUCK YOU. ALL of the residents I have met down there were working before the hurricane, whose ancestors worked hard decades and decades before in the same area... who now have to work three fucking jobs and keep their faith in their God and keep the hope alive within their families that the city won't fucking bulldoze their home and that the organization will keep it's word and help start rebuild a 75 year-old woman's home... FUCK YOU WHO SAY THEY DESERVE THIS SHIT. FUCK YOU. These people are nothing but grateful for any MINIMAL bit of support from young people who live 24 hours away... and we start to realize we do make a bit of difference. Because we hear the stories of the residents. We get the support from those we encounter and work alongside. Yes, not everyone is welcoming. No, it is not a safe place to be going down to help... I know this. My friends know this. And we don't care. Because we have seen the hurt in their eyes. I have seen the tears of a 75 year old woman as she told me how race relations got out of hand at the hotel she had fled to when the hurricane hit and was forced out of the hotel... and her son carried her on his back through God knows how many feet of toxic flood water to their home miles away so they could wait on her roof to be airlifted to some sort of safety. I have seen the exasperation of a wealthy doctor who lost everything in the flood and yet gives spaces to volunteer organizations for them to use and takes care of residents when they need it. I have seen the much needed relaxation of a 45 year old contractor who had a breakdown after Katrina and is just recovering... who was so thankful to spend the day with us "white people" on the beach in Mississippi- nowhere near out of sight of destruction (in fact, right in the midst of devastation) and have his phone off and just walk peacefully along the Gulf for a few hours. I have seen the homeless. I have seen the children "playing"... no schools to attend, toys are all gone, parents can't find jobs. I have seen people "enjoy" the last free meal offered at an emergency community... only to have to return to scrounging for something as their homes sit many feet away from where they used to in the Lower 9th Ward... where it feels like the houses remain untouched as a spectacle for outsiders but that will never be shown on television. Where there's a fucking "You Can't Beat Bert's Meat" sign still in the exact spot it was in front of the house that is sitting practically in the street... hasn't moved one inch since March. Why should it move? Why should we mend our hearts and lives? Let's see the spectacle of that very house that juts out into the street, its insides coming out from the front, its curtains still hanging perfectly... its chandelier, destroyed, but still hanging on while the outside wall tells people within the "X" that, yes, a person died in this very HOME when the levee broke... R.I.P. the wall reads... make-shift memorial flower arrangements hang from the outside... the distinct smell of death and destruction, dust and disease in every breath you take... Take your pictures. I am guilty of this. Show them to people at home. Think that this will affect them the same way it affected you without any success. They'll never understand. And you want to cry. Because this could have been anyone. Black, white, yellow, fucking cyan blue... it doesn't matter. Because unlike us, nature doesn't discriminate. Anyone, anywhere. And what would it take for the government to give two shits? For citizens to give two shits past saying "oh those poor people.."
It's back to fucking basics for those people --- trying to secure food and shelter... convenience stores and the Home Depot are their only shopping options... While we, in a hypothetical situation, will sit eating our value meals in front of our plasma screens watching CNN tell us that nothing has changed in the South and that people are still deserving of support... but don't worry-- because you will NEVER fucking see that happen.
So let me be discouraged down there because I didn't get to work alongside many residents this time around... instead we had to build a volunteer site. Why, you ask? Because volunteer sites are being lost and taken away. What does that mean? Volunteers can't come down to N.O. unless they're staying in some Marriott downtown... so volunteers have to be turned away. Can the region afford to turn volunteers away? Absolutely not. If minimal progress has been achieved with volunteers so far, nothing good will come of turning them away... So in the long run, we did make an impact on the city. Now volunteers are currently being housed there less than one week later. They've gutted a few schools since then. Ten people in their young 20s, in seven days, created a solid center of solidarity in the wicked heat. An impact was made.
But ask me how many beads I earned while I was down there... please. Ask me how we distracted ourselves from the devastation after work hours... (I did see the "attractions" because I do believe it is necessary to see the culture and legacy you are fighting to save from fading off... ) ... to distract me from telling you what's really going on down there. Because you don't want to hear the truth. You don't like to hear the truth... because when I start to speak it, you get uncomfortable. You shift in your seats... you look at other things... you change the subject... you cut me off. You don't want me bringing you down. And as I try to put into words what I have seen and experienced in my short lengths of stay in New Orleans, my mind reels and reels and fails to articulate how I really feel, how things really truly are on the surface and below it... It's okay--- I only picked beads up off the street (the other girls weren't in the mood for a group flashing. maybe next time). And don't worry.. I didn't get trashed. I didn't ho it up. Sorry to disappoint you with my lack of exciting stories. I'll refrain from boring you with my stories of escaping getting shot and getting called at and having random questionable encounters with people coming over the railroad tracks to check on us.. Don't worry--- things were nice and peaceful. We didn't need to lock the gates. Walked around as we pleased... Really, it's okay. Talk to me like you know what's going on down there because you read the news... Criticize me because you think you know how it is... how people are... how the situation unfolded it and your perfect plan for a quick-fix... Keep on talking like you know it all.... like this happens all the time... especially to you. So you most definitely know what you are talking about.
Then tell me to focus on the local area... because our people need it, too. Well, no shit, Sherlock. But it's funny- you obviously don't fucking know me. Because I volunteer in Buffalo all the time. All year round... I've devoted myself to it. That doesn't make me special. That doesn't give me an excuse to shrug off Buffalo for now... but you have no right to tell me to put my priorities in check... because I have my priorities straight. Some people do not. And so others must compensate. And when you are given a calling, you are given a calling. And you go. And I went. And fuck you for telling me that it's someone else's job to fix things down there. I don't see anyone else doing much. Some people need to lead for others to follow. And fuck you because I am not following anymore.
Fuck you when you tell me it's more important to stay here and focus on my own life... let me be self-absorbed and unhappy. Let's care only about ourselves... well thank you very much but I am privileged enough to have a roof over my head, a car that I do not live out of but drive myself to my two jobs with, and go to a good school. Should I feel like I am selfish for having all of those things? Maybe not... up here I am not one of the elite. My family is working class, not middle class. We don't go on family vacations and we don't live in a nice new house in the suburbs. But my life is comfortable enough for me to know that I am so lucky to live the life that I live. So stop telling me to worry about myself. I'll worry about myself when it's necessary. Yes, I have to make money. But I despise it. And if I didn't need it, I would be THERE not HERE listening to people bitch about their pathetic, so over-dramatic lives, parking tickets, and the fact that whipped cream is 50 cents extra. Oh my God, let's sit and bitch about my nail color and the bitchy woman who painted them and then oh my god, how can I owe $560 of parking tickets? I'm lying through my teeth when I say I never received a single one and never received a single one of the twenty warnings you sent me in the mail over the past 12 years... please remove those tickets or my attorney will be calling soon... and oh my god, whipped cream and nuts cost extra? this is a TRUE American travesty!
All of our lives suck. We all have tragedy. Yes. It's a fact. But must we be so goddamned selfish? It's not our fault.. we are blinded from the truth. This is America. And we are not all bad people. No, most of us are decent people. But we are governed by a bunch of scumbags. And our media lies.
And don't you fucking dare call me a fucking liberal hippy. I am the farthest thing from one of the guitar-playing, sit on my ass all day and talk about the woes of the world in my super-fake folk singer accent and paint signs all day about solidarity and washing our hands hippies. FUCK no.