(no subject)
it's been raining for several days straight. i think this is the first time i have ever really thought that the city is ugly. everything is wet, the little snow that is left is dark brown with dirt and filled with wet garbage.
there was shooting in my neighborhood on monday. i guess it was a shootout between two rival gangs. a policeman was shot. it was a block from my apartment. i wasn't sure if i could get home because of the yellowtapepolicemenambulancesbrightredtape shutting down the four blocks before my apartment. it happened after school, i guess that is the new time to do drivebys/gang fights, more people adds to the confusion/chaos. later, i looked out my front window and saw policemen looking through my front yard and garbage with flashlights.
this seems so surreal, and yet very real at the same time. sometimes i think i am going crazy...shootouts? this is so very different from the hope college, southwest michigan that i know. but evidenced from the reactions of my neighbors and kids from the nearby high school, this isn't so out-of-the-ordinary. when i stood at the end of my block, trying to make sense of the ambulances, spotlights, policeman, i overheard an older woman telling a man next to me about when her son was shot, and he in turn told her about his nephew and cousin's deaths from gangshootings. is this something i will get used to? or will it deeply upset me everytime?
i think i hope the later, but i also hope that i will be moved by a need for a deeper sense of justice and peace too. instead of apathy and hopelessness.
there was shooting in my neighborhood on monday. i guess it was a shootout between two rival gangs. a policeman was shot. it was a block from my apartment. i wasn't sure if i could get home because of the yellowtapepolicemenambulancesbrightredtape shutting down the four blocks before my apartment. it happened after school, i guess that is the new time to do drivebys/gang fights, more people adds to the confusion/chaos. later, i looked out my front window and saw policemen looking through my front yard and garbage with flashlights.
this seems so surreal, and yet very real at the same time. sometimes i think i am going crazy...shootouts? this is so very different from the hope college, southwest michigan that i know. but evidenced from the reactions of my neighbors and kids from the nearby high school, this isn't so out-of-the-ordinary. when i stood at the end of my block, trying to make sense of the ambulances, spotlights, policeman, i overheard an older woman telling a man next to me about when her son was shot, and he in turn told her about his nephew and cousin's deaths from gangshootings. is this something i will get used to? or will it deeply upset me everytime?
i think i hope the later, but i also hope that i will be moved by a need for a deeper sense of justice and peace too. instead of apathy and hopelessness.