(no subject)
i'm going to bed after a long long weekend.
i am thinking of putting together a zine about the shootings that have taken place in my neighborhood over the time that i have lived here. i've never lived in a place where shootings took place before now. i was shocked, just before i moved to durham, when the cops shot and killed someone at the BP up the street from carl's in fredericksburg. last night i was woken up by gun shots, the second shooting in one night, and had to call 911 twice and be transfered from raleigh both times before durham 911 even answered the phone. something is wrong with this picture, and what's disturbing is that it's been wrong all along, i just never really knew how wrong it was, because these kinds of things don't generally happen in places where i tend to have lived.
i'm having trouble reconciling the part of myself that says, "duh, it's an unsafe neighborhood; just leave," and the part that says, "this isn't about whether you live in a bad neighborhood or not; this is where you live, and there is a problem. what is anyone going to do about it?" if i've learned anything at my job, it's to pick my battles. i'm not going to save walltown; that's naive. but i can't see myself moving away from this situation unaffected, with a big sigh of relief, like i'd just escaped some kind of monster in a kids movie. as long as this street is a part of my life, i am concerned about what's happening here. i'm concerned for my neighbor with twin toddlers whose duplex was shot at a month ago, after his next-door neighbors had a domestic dispute. i'm concerned for the grandmother on the corner who told me that she stayed on the floor all night last night. i'm concerned for my friends hilda and manuel and their little boy berto, who bought their first house last summer, on the corner of englewood and berkeley, just behind me. i'm concerned because the policewoman told me this morning that "two blocks is nothing for a bullet. they'll keep going until they hit something." and yes, i'm concerned for myself, and for my roommates, and my dog. in may i won't be living in this house anymore; but i am mad that gunshots and drug dealers are scaring my peers away from a neighborhood that rules like no other neighborhood i've lived in, in so many ways. i'm mad that so much good has to co-exist with so much bad. i don't want anyone of us to get hit.
i am thinking of putting together a zine about the shootings that have taken place in my neighborhood over the time that i have lived here. i've never lived in a place where shootings took place before now. i was shocked, just before i moved to durham, when the cops shot and killed someone at the BP up the street from carl's in fredericksburg. last night i was woken up by gun shots, the second shooting in one night, and had to call 911 twice and be transfered from raleigh both times before durham 911 even answered the phone. something is wrong with this picture, and what's disturbing is that it's been wrong all along, i just never really knew how wrong it was, because these kinds of things don't generally happen in places where i tend to have lived.
i'm having trouble reconciling the part of myself that says, "duh, it's an unsafe neighborhood; just leave," and the part that says, "this isn't about whether you live in a bad neighborhood or not; this is where you live, and there is a problem. what is anyone going to do about it?" if i've learned anything at my job, it's to pick my battles. i'm not going to save walltown; that's naive. but i can't see myself moving away from this situation unaffected, with a big sigh of relief, like i'd just escaped some kind of monster in a kids movie. as long as this street is a part of my life, i am concerned about what's happening here. i'm concerned for my neighbor with twin toddlers whose duplex was shot at a month ago, after his next-door neighbors had a domestic dispute. i'm concerned for the grandmother on the corner who told me that she stayed on the floor all night last night. i'm concerned for my friends hilda and manuel and their little boy berto, who bought their first house last summer, on the corner of englewood and berkeley, just behind me. i'm concerned because the policewoman told me this morning that "two blocks is nothing for a bullet. they'll keep going until they hit something." and yes, i'm concerned for myself, and for my roommates, and my dog. in may i won't be living in this house anymore; but i am mad that gunshots and drug dealers are scaring my peers away from a neighborhood that rules like no other neighborhood i've lived in, in so many ways. i'm mad that so much good has to co-exist with so much bad. i don't want anyone of us to get hit.