Once monthly, the New York City Writing Project celebrates the teacher-as-writer by publishing works of poetry and prose written by its teachers. If you are interested in submitting your work to NYCWP Voices, please read the submissions guidelines and submit your work by email to voices@nycwritingproject.org.

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Shock 

-Meny Beriro

CHARACTERS:

Annie, in her 40s

Beatrice, in her 40s

 

Lights up on ANNIE and BEATRICE. They are staring at a work of art in an art gallery.

 

ANNIE

So . . .

 

BEATRICE

Intense —

 

ANNIE

How do I —

 

BEATRICE

You can’t.

 

ANNIE

Then . . .

 

BEATRICE

Release —

 

ANNIE

How?

 

BEATRICE

Inside —

 

ANNIE

I feel so . . .

 

BEATRICE

Don’t describe -– just feel -–

 

ANNIE

My god! My god! My god! . . . Who knew this was possible?

 

BEATRICE

Why do you think I was always inviting you? But of course Simon told you art was a waste of time —

 

ANNIE

Don’t remind me . . . a minute ago everything was normal – this was unimaginable —

 

BEATRICE

You’ve heard of the Big Bang – all it took for the entire universe to come alive was the tiniest fraction of a second . . . you’ve had a whole minute —

 

ANNIE

Everything is moving so fast — Lamborghini fast —

 

BEATRICE

When were you in a Lamborghini?

 

ANNIE

Never — but I’ve always wanted —

 

BEATRICE

The faster – the better – right?

 

ANNIE

You bet . . . this is very scary —

 

BEATRICE

It has to be – we’re not in a laundry – we’re not chewing gum watching shirts dry. Art — real art — has to challenge you – question every pre-conceived notion . . . we are at its mercy —

 

ANNIE

Oh, my God. It’s getting stronger – never mind Lamborghini – more like a bullet train in Japan —

 

BEATRICE

Ride it . . . you’ve never been to Japan, have you?

 

ANNIE

Not even close.

 

BEATRICE

Dave wants to take me there for our —

 

ANNIE

My God! This is so unique – I’ve never felt like this —

 

BEATRICE

Actually, it’s quite common —

 

ANNIE

Really? A cold is common. Not this. Definitely not this.

 

BEATRICE

Trust me — I’ve had it worse —

 

ANNIE

Is this safe?

 

BEATRICE

Of course not. Imagine what it was like when the universe was created. The energy released – the forces unleashed the possibilities – always expanding – forever and ever – meaning this very second – something that’s once nothing

 

                     (She snaps her finger)

 

. . . is now part of the universe . . . a month ago — this space was empty and now look. Look.

 

ANNIE

My God! You can’t just go back after this —-

 

BEATRICE

Back where?

 

ANNIE

Nowhere.

 

BEATRICE

You’re living —

 

ANNIE

Here.

 

BEATRICE

Now.

 

ANNIE

If only Simon —

 

BEATRICE

Don’t –-

 

ANNIE

I’m just thinking – if we‘d had more moments like this —

 

BEATRICE

More. Did you ever even have one?

 

ANNIE

You want to know something? It’s no longer feeling like a Japanese bullet train — it’s now more like Amtrak.

 

BEATRICE

Then you’ve definitely had enough.

 

                BEATRICE pulls her away from the artwork.

 

         BEATRICE (Cont’d)

Wait until you see the next one —-

 

ANNIE

Another?

 

BEATRICE

We’ve just begun —

 

ANNIE

It’s too much – I don’t even recognize myself —

 

BEATRICE

How beautiful . . . get ready to be assaulted again —

 

ANNIE

I can’t handle any more —

 

BEATRICE

Sure you can.

 

ANNIE

I’m very fragile —

 

BEATRICE

Good. Then let yourself break. Into a billion pieces. Don’t be afraid. You’ll only heal if you’re free. Let go – like you let Simon go — I’m so proud of you. Why you stayed with him all these years with his annoying rituals –-

 

 

ANNIE

You mean like flossing his teeth eighteen times a day?

 

BEATRICE

Only eighteen?

 

 

ANNIE

I don’t like to badmouth him. Pun intended.

 

                     They both laugh.

 

BEATRICE

Good riddance. You lucked out.

 

ANNIE

Well, he sort of left me —

 

BEATRICE

Yeah, but that didn’t stop you. You were brave enough to let him go. You didn’t cling. Clinging is so pathetic. We’re not socks. And you realized that.

 

ANNIE

Did I?

 

BEATRICE

Of course you did. Look at the big picture. Simon went on to marry his dental hygienist. They deserve each other. You deserve more than clean teeth.

 

ANNIE

I’m still working it out.

 

BEATRICE

What are you talking about? I’ve never seen you look better.

 

ANNIE

Really?

 

BEATRICE

Really! You’ve lost weight –

 

ANNIE

It’s the result of my depression diet —

 

BEATRICE

You’ve got nothing to be depressed about –

 

ANNIE

Every morning when I begin brushing – it all comes back to me – I see him in the mirror laughing at my gums with his shiny —

 

BEATRICE

Stop it . . . Here it is.

 

                    They stop to view the work of art.

 

         BEATRICE (Cont’d)

Well?

 

ANNIE

I don’t know.

 

BEATRICE

You’re not feeling it?

 

ANNIE

Not yet.

 

BEATRICE

Then you’re not feeling it.

 

ANNIE

Let’s give it some time.

 

BEATRICE

Time has nothing to do with it.

 

ANNIE

Maybe it’s me. What do you feel?

 

BEATRICE

I don’t want to influence you.

 

ANNIE

Maybe the other one was so strong — I can’t feel anything anymore –-

 

BEATRICE

You’re numb — it happens —

 

 

ANNIE

We should go —

 

BEATRICE

Dave is coming by with a very debonair colleague -– you ought to meet him —

 

ANNIE

I’m not ready to meet new –-

 

BEATRICE

Darling — you’re ready. So ready. Anything?

 

ANNIE

Nothing.

 

BEATRICE

Do you want to go back and see the first one again?

 

ANNIE

Why?

 

BEATRICE

You’ll find something new — great art is very philanthropic – it never stops giving —

 

ANNIE

It won’t be the same –-

 

BEATRICE

Do you want it the same?

 

ANNIE

I don’t know what I want.

 

BEATRICE

Let’s try one more.

 

ANNIE

What if I don’t feel anything again? I’ll start worrying I might have done serious psychological damage with all the intensity of the first piece -– short-circuited my brain somehow – I’ll have to get therapy which I really can’t afford right now –

 

BEATRICE

You’re making this way too complicated —

 

ANNIE

Really? My toaster was an excellent dependable toaster — had it for eight years – never a problem – okay once in a while a piece of bread might get jammed – no big deal — but I had to bring home a bagel – okay it was a huge bagel — and my poor little toaster just couldn’t handle it – went belly up — overload – now it’s in some filthy dumpster somewhere instead of my nice kitchen —

 

BEATRICE

You’re not a toaster – you’ll survive. Come on – one more –

 

ANNIE

I just think it’s too risky —

 

BEATRICE

What’s wrong with risk? It’s the essence of art —

 

ANNIE

For the creator –- not the observer –-

 

BEATRICE

You’re a part of the art –- how you view it –- live in it — is part of the art — if it’s lying inside a closet and no one is interacting with it –- it’s nothing –-

 

ANNIE

I’ve gone through a lot this year –- my divorce from Simon –- my mother in the nursing home –- my own health issues with high blood pressure – not to mention my daughter running away with an aspiring bank teller — I really should play it safe –-

 

BEATRICE

Then why did you insist on coming?

 

ANNIE

I wanted something to get my mind off my problems –

 

BEATRICE

Exactly. Try one more –- come on you can do it –- I promise this will be the last one.

 

ANNIE

Fine. I really shouldn’t –-

 

                   They move on to view the next work of art.

BEATRICE

Well?

 

ANNIE

I can’t believe it.

 

BEATRICE

What?

 

ANNIE

I’ve been waiting for this my entire life –

 

BEATRICE

This is so exciting –-

 

ANNIE

I feel like I’m climbing Mt. Everest –

 

BEATRICE

That’s on my bucket list – not actually climbing it – but seeing it in person —

 

ANNIE

I’m getting dizzy.

 

BEATRICE

Naturally –- the air is very thin up there.

 

ANNIE

Oh, my God! I’m actually getting dizzy –-

 

BEATRICE

That’s wonderful! You’re totally connected.

 

ANNIE

My head —

 

BEATRICE

Go with it.

 

ANNIE

This is too much. I’m hang gliding through the cosmos –

 

BEATRICE

Hang gliding? Have you ever –-

 

ANNIE

Never – until now – right now – I’m dizzy – so dizzy —

 

BEATRICE

You did take your blood pressure pills —- right?

 

ANNIE

The hell with the pills! Let my pressure jump to 300. I don’t care. I’m alive –- ALIVE — maybe for the first time. To hell with all the doctors – they just want to make you hostage to the pharmaceuticals – one drug – then another – this is the only drug I need!

 

BEATRICE

Congratulations! You’re finally seeing the light

 

ANNIE

Yes. And it’s beaming bright. This work is heaven. Pure heaven!

 

BEATRICE

If you insist – I wouldn’t quite go that far —

 

ANNIE

Look at it. Look deep. Feel it. It’s everything you could ever want — it’s right there — grabbing you – pulling you inside – like a spider entangling you in its web –- deeper and deeper.

 

                    Pause.

 

BEATRICE

You’re right! It does have everything. A Black Hole devouring the infinity of space . . . How did I miss it?

 

ANNIE

My head is spinning . . . spinning . . . spinning . . .

 

ANNIE collapses.

 

BEATRICE

Wow! Wow! Wow!

 

 

BEATRICE keeps looking at the work of art with a beautiful smile as the lights go down.

 

CURTAIN.

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Born in Gibraltar and raised in Queens, MENY BERIRO has utilized his wide array of experiences to create over twenty plays produced Off Broadway and in regional theaters. He is the recipient of the Jean Dalrymple and Gilbert Ancowitz Playwriting awards (American Theatre of Actors) for PigeonHole and Settle Down. Meny was part of a group of playwrights who wrote 167 Tongues, a series of vignettes portraying the multi-cultural life of Jackson Heights which was featured in the New York Times and American Theatre magazine. His play, “Excellent Souls,” about a family dealing with schizophrenia, was chosen as the 2014 Yale Drama Series runner-up. Meny teaches Social Studies at Newtown High School; where he’s developed a Global History Revue with his students covering topics from the Neolithic Revolution to the Renaissance. He is a graduate of Queens College and holds an M.A. in Education from Cambridge College.

Once monthly, the New York City Writing Project celebrates the teacher-as-writer by publishing works of poetry and prose written by its teachers. If you are interested in submitting your work to NYCWP Voices, please read the submissions guidelines and submit your work by email to voices@nycwritingproject.org.

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Stairs, Steps, & Flights

-Joe Bellacero

 

Nights are darker at ten years old, on the cusp of eleven. Noises are sharper, cold is deeper, stairs are steeper, time is both faster and slower. But loss is always loss.

It had been a week of loss that November in 1960 just days before my birthday. I had said good-bye to my classmates at Mt. Carmel Grammar School. I had said good-bye to my neighbor and best friend, Bobby Stillwater, and made those promises you make to write him lots of letters. I had walked at my mother’s side as we moved from room to room of the rented rowhouse in Altoona along with the sheriff and auctioneer, who were there to see we paid back what we could of the Welfare we had received. Almost all we owned taken out of the drawers and closets, spread on the tables, beds, counters, and floors for neighbors and strangers to paw through and bid on with dimes and quarters.

Together, mom and I said good-bye to all of the belongings we were not able to fit into the one suitcase each we would be allowed to take.

Good-bye baseball cards bought or won. Good-bye second-hand bicycle, mine for five bottle-return dollars — 2¢ a bottle. Good-bye clothes and books, and toys, and what was left of childhood.

We had to go and we had to go now.

The night before, my father, drunk, and unrecognizable as the man who had adjusted my skates and taught me how to ride a bike, had climbed the porch steps and banged on the front door for half an hour. Then, as expected and dreaded, he kicked the door in, splintering the door jamb.

Who was this man who had treed us on the second floor? How could he wear the same face as the one who told me my first report card with its 70s and low 80s was wonderful because “it gives you so much room to improve”? How could I be losing him, too?

Marie had gathered the little ones into the girls’ bedroom. I stayed with mom behind the door in hers.

Dad staggered up the steps. He could have turned the knob and come in, but again, he kicked it open.

His eyes locked on hers. “You’re still my wife,” he raged and dropped his pants.

“Get out.” He said to me.

“Stay,” said mom.

He stepped out of his pants, came into the room. “It’s my right.”

Mom backed up to the window and jerked it open letting Alleghany cold flood in. She threw one leg out over the three story drop.

“I’ll jump. I swear to God, I’ll jump!”

Then I was on her, arms wrapped around the remaining leg, desperate. “No! No! No! No!”

She looked down at me, looked up at him. Staring him in the eyes, she brought her leg back in and gathered me up.

“Just leave,” she said to him quietly.

Time stopped; then stretched out on the razor edge of the moment.

He took his pants and stumbled down the stairs. I would never see him again.

The next night, we fled.

 *

Aunt Nina and Uncle Patsy took us into their tiny second-floor apartment; four children, an infant, and mom. We slept all together on the floor, chairs, and sofa of their living room. It was gracious of them and dangerous to them. Dad would figure it out and would come. We couldn’t be there. We had to be gone as soon as possible.

“You don’t have to take off your things. You can take off your shoes and sleep right in your clothes.” The little ones were charmed.

 *

It was very dark, 10-year-old dark, when I was shaken awake. Marie’s strangely pale face was over me, that odd brown birthmark on her forehead seemed so much darker in the light of one lamp.

“Jackie, you have to wake up. We have to go. Get Martin.”

Stupid with sleep, I couldn‘t distinguish Martin from the blankets. I felt around the floor for him and found one of my shoes. I picked it up staring blankly at it. Then I put it on. Marie was back. She had her coat and hat on and Adele in her arms.

“Jack!”

I finally focused and found Martin.

He shivered and watched me dully as I got his shoes on.

“You’re bending my toes,” he reported.

I pulled the shoe back off, opened the laces a bit wider and slid it on again, using my finger at the back as a shoehorn.

“Better?”

He grunted affirmatively.

When he was shoed and his laces tied, I started gathering up the blankets on the floor and trying to fold them.

Aunt Nina fluttered over. “You no have to do this,” she said, taking them from me.

“I can’t find my other shoe,” I told her.

“Accidente,” she breathed and set about rooting in the jumble.

Then Uncle Vic, all the way from New York, came through the door and the pace picked up.

“Get the suitcases. Where’s your mom?”

“I don’t know,” I said and gimped over to where the bags were stacked behind Uncle Patsy’s doily-bedecked chair.

“Bring those down to the car.” He went off toward the bedroom while I took the first bag down. The car stood steaming in the night, its lights two vanilla wedges in the 2 AM mist.

Uncle Vic had come directly from work in Manhattan, a nine-hour trip. He was still in his suit though it was uncharacteristically rumpled. His chin had stubble I had never seen before and would never see again. He had another nine-hour drive ahead of him through the dead of night in a crowded car. He hated disorder, last minute plans, and long road trips, but his only sister had called so he was there.

As he took charge of the situation, I made four trips down the stairs with the luggage. They were metal outside stairs, fire-escape-like. This way I would not disturb the people on the first floor.

My socked foot grew increasingly numb from the heat-sucking stair metal. On my fifth trip up the stairs, I met them all coming down. Mom, cradling the infant Sammy, was in the lead, her eyes wide but barely taking me in. Uncle Vic with the remaining suitcases was right behind. Martin came next, his ungloved hand was letting go of the ice-cold metal rail whenever possible. Behind him Marie held Adele’s hand as she step-togethered down. In her other hand was my shoe.

“Aunt Nina found it. She said to give you a kiss ‘cuz we have to go.”

I started to sit, but Marie wouldn’t have it. “You can put it on in the car.”

 *

Sammy, up front in mom’s arms, was whimpering with the cold. The set of Uncle Vic’s shoulders made his unhappiness with the sound very clear. It crossed my mind that men of a certain age always seemed to be angry. I wondered if I would be angry when I was grown.

The trip was a series of briefly awake moments:

• Martin’s head falling to my lap as we took the winding Pennsylvania backroads to route 80.
• Uncle Vic cracking the window to icy mountain air as someone, maybe me, farted in their sleep.
• Black becoming the gray gloom of a sunless dawn as the car ate the New Jersey miles.
• The sharp smell of gasoline as we stopped to fuel up and relieve bladders.
• And finally, complete wakefulness as we crossed the Meadowland marshes with the New York skyline filling our eyes.

I felt its bigness, its muscle, its total indifference to me. The seams in the concrete surface of the George Washington Bridge fit perfectly with the mantra in my head. Spa-a-ace, slap, I don’t want to BE here; spa-a-ace slap, I don’t want to BE here; spa-a-ace slap, I don’t want to BE here…”

After twists, turns, and traffic-light stops through bewildering canyons of brick monsters, we reached my grandparents’ tenement in the Bronx and disgorged into a late, bleak November gray. Might be snow coming.

Mom and Uncle Vic hustled the group towards the fifth floor walk-up. But I couldn’t follow. Not yet. I stood a while against the car – a short while and just a minute or two more – eyes closed, holding onto my loss.

Then I lifted everything I owned and climbed the 80 steps to my future.

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Over the course of his four decades of teaching in New York City, there have been more than 6,000 days when JOE BELLACERO felt the joy of entering the classroom. He has relished at least 30,000 classes, working and learning with young people who wanted the same things all young people want—to have fun, experiment, discover themselves, push their boundaries, escape the embarrassment of ignorance, be respected, challenged, disciplined and loved. Joe considers teaching to be an adventure, with all that the word implies: uncertainty, discovery, sudden threat, startling beauty, unexpected twists and the possibility that there wouldn’t be a happy ending.  It also implies that the adventurer will need to learn from more experienced guides, will have to innovate on the fly, and, every single day, will be made very aware of being alive.  Joe currently enjoys the adventures of being an NYCWP teacher consultant.

 

Once monthly, the New York City Writing Project celebrates the teacher-as-writer by publishing works of poetry and prose written by its teachers. If you are interested in submitting your work to NYCWP Voices, please read the submissions guidelines and submit your work by email to voices@nycwritingproject.org.

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Trees

-JoAnna Bueckert-Chan

Lightning strikes trees because they reach to the sky.

When this occurs,

sap boils

gas expands

timber explodes.

 

When a tree is struck by lightning,

the current

dismembers it

chars it and cracks it

trunks splinter and split.

 

This tree

suffers.

It may succumb

to the electric charges & ions

swirling in thunderclouds

of storms above.

 

But sometimes,

If the tree was well mulched, watered, fertilized, trimmed

from before the clouds began to loom,

It can seal off wounds

endure damage

hold the earth

and though scarred

grasp upward

still

and again.

 

 

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JoANNA BUECKERT-CHAN began her teaching career in Mexico City where she taught English to adult learners and then became a language institute Branch Director.  Upon returning to her home state of California, she worked in the Bay Area as a high school English teacher with the Puente Project at Tennyson High School, where, among other initiatives, she restarted the journalism program and school newspaper. When she relocated to New York City, she was fortunate to find her footing at Landmark High School, a member of The New York Performance Standards Consortium.  While at Landmark High School, JoAnna taught English classes and a host of other courses including advisory, poetry, urban hiking and rock climbing.  Currently, JoAnna works as a NYC Writing Project on-site teacher consultant and her passion lies in helping schools and teachers use writing in authentic ways that help students see the power of their own voices and minds.

Once monthly, the New York City Writing Project celebrates the teacher-as-writer by publishing works of poetry and prose written by its teachers. If you are interested in submitting your work to NYCWP Voices, please read the submissions guidelines and submit your work by email to voices@nycwritingproject.org.

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“Rules of the Road”

When you see the dog out of the corner of your eye, you think first that it is nothing and then that it is a ghost flickering through time. You maintain your speed. You keep your hands on the wheel, your eyes on the road. Still, you feel its presence as it races beside your car, its legs pounding the asphalt with a frightening velocity.

As it cuts in front on you, your foot hovers over the brake, your mind racing through fragments of instructional driving videos. The dog is faster than you are though, faster than the others on the highway. The dog (now you are certain it is a dog, not nothing, not a ghost) weaves in and out of traffic, and you struggle to follow its path. You remember then that the videos tell you that you must hit the animal. You cannot slow down. You cannot swerve.

The car beside yours dips into your lane, and when you turn your head to curse them, you see that the driver is shouting for you. He wants you to slow down, to form a wall across the lanes of traffic. You obey, and together you clog the road. The dog zips back and forth across the great expanse in front of you. You can see now that it is brown, long-limbed, collarless. It is easier for you to believe it is a deer.

Behind you, people lean into their horns, but they are ignorant to the work you are doing. A slow-moving border, together you inch forward until the next exit, where maybe then the dog will realize how to escape.

If only you could reach across to open the passenger door, offering the dog amnesty. You are certain it would understand your cue. A week earlier, with her, you could have saved it.

 

 

“Roots”

Deep in her core, she felt the seed expand, unfurl. First, the roots mirrored her capillaries, but soon twisted around them, strangling. She coughed, tried to dislodge the growth, but her spittle ran clear, lacking blood or pollen or any other clues to what grew within her. The doctors suggested cancer, inoperable, even when her scans proved otherwise. Radiation, chemotherapy – these could only shrink the mass. She balked. Why should she destroy this tree within her lungs, simply because it mistook her body for a patch of moist earth?

At night, she spoke to it, asking it to halt its constriction, to grow out of her body instead of deeper within. She felt its response: a churning, an expansion. By morning, she expected to see branches extending from her fingertips, leaves budding from her scalp, moss blanketing her belly, but her appearance, besides a new sallowness, a peakedness, remained unchanged. Sometimes, the doctors – her second and third opinions – left messages for her, urging her to begin treatment. She ignored it all, feeling compassion for this life that she carried. When it was time, she knew, she would find the perfect spot, lie down, branch out.

 

 

 

“Pinniped”

Your parents don’t say a word while you wait on line to buy tickets for the aquarium. They stand behind you, silent like statues, and your dad has his hand on your back. As the line crawls, he pushes you forward in small increments, like you are a mechanical boy. It makes you so happy that you forget to turn around to see their faces.

When you reach the counter, your dad buys three tickets. You want to hold yours, but before you can ask, your mom tells you to stand in front of a green screen while a man takes your photo.

Inside, you run from exhibit to exhibit, pulling at your parents’ hands. You watch sea lions catch fish in their mouths, and flop with fat bellies on the wet tiles. The rooms are connected by glass tunnels, with fish swimming above you, and even more swimming beneath your feet. You wonder if maybe they are looking at you, the way you are looking at them.

In the cafeteria, your dad tsks at the prices, but your mom buys you chicken nuggets shaped like sharks anyway. In the gift shop, you beg for a hat with walrus tusks that jail you inside your head.

You pretend to be asleep on the ride home, but secretly you strain to listen to their words hidden under song.

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Jennifer Ray Morell is an English teacher at Archbishop Molloy High School. She received her MS in Education from St. John’s University and her MFA in Fiction from The New School. Her work has appeared online at Slate, Tin House, Trop, and Quirk. She lives in Queens.

 

Once monthly, the New York City Writing Project celebrates the teacher-as-writer by publishing works of poetry and prose written by its teachers. If you are interested in submitting your work to NYCWP Voices, please read the submissions guidelines and submit your work by email to voices@nycwritingproject.org.

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BEYOND REFORM OF LAW ENFORCEMENT

-Marlon Peterson

Three months ago I moderated a panel at Brooklyn Borough Hall with over 150 boys from Brownsville, Brooklyn, ages 12–18, followed by a dialogue about policing in their communities. A 13-year old boy stood up to ask the audience a question –that he seemed to be intensely asking himself:

“Why are the there so much police in my neighborhood? Why are they always bothering people? I just don’t understand. It don’t make sense. Why it gotta be like this?”

He was only 13-years old, the same age as Tamir Rice, and we saw how Tamir’s life ended.

Walter Scott was shot in the back and we saw it. Rodney King was pummeled by a gang of cops, and we saw it. Ramarley Graham was chasedinto his home, and we saw it. Sandra Bland was manhandled, and we saw it. Eric Garner was strangled to death, and we saw that. Laquan McDonald was assassinated by the Cook County Police Department, and we saw that. Cameras are the new checks to law enforcement, but are they capable of balances? Further, how does witnessing those atrocities affect the human psyche? To see these real life acts of violence without accountability? How are 13-year olds supposed to process that information, especially since they cannot unsee the brutality?

Beyond the brutality, and the associated trauma, what will it take for us, the adults, to be brave enough to pool our collective intellect and imagination to create systems of community empowerment that relieves law enforcement the assumed deified role as the panacea of all social problems in poor black and brown communities? We look to the law enforcement to address mental health issues, student misbehavior, drug addiction — in poor communities. The results of this lack of imagination and new theory & practice are occurrences like Quintonio Legrier and Bettie Jones in Chicago and Shakara in South Carolina.

This inability to think beyond reformation, and to new structures of community empowerments is killing some and traumatizing millions. Perhaps it is time to address community problems from a strength-based perspective, instead of the deficit-based tried and failed method of retaliatory justice masked as arrest and conviction.

But, the naysayers abound…

(cacophony from the background…)

“But, what about the violent gangs!?” Surely, they need aggressive policing.

I like to use North Lawndale, Chicago and Watts, Los Angeles as case studies for those arguments. Both North Lawndale and Watts have high rates of violent crime and gang membership. But they also have extremely high 18.5% unemployment rate, and the average income of $12,548 is below the national poverty line. They are also the historical example of institutional discrimination through redlining. North Lawndale, once a white middle class neighborhood became a black hood. White flight from North Lawndale came along with city ordinances that conned and scammed blacks by charging them three and four times the value of the home. Once they were able to buy their dream home they were preyed upon by mortgage companies, and lenders who encouraged the new homeowners into contracts that would never result in the paying off of a mortgage. In fact, if you missed one payment the sheriff would be at your door with an eviction notice and a moving company.

Connect the dots. Black families escaping southern terrorism in the form of segregation moved to North Lawndale with monies saved from domestic work, or funds saved despite the predatory system of sharecropping. They were not more than one step away from poverty, they were still surviving poverty. The most economically vulnerable were systemically preyed upon. Hence, one missed payment or inability to keep up with the malicious contract system would result in homelessness and still indebted to the lenders. Even the Bible says the person owing is a slave to the lender. Poverty turns neighborhoods extensions of economic slavery. Economic slavery turns neighborhoods into ‘hoods.

Connect the dots. Hoods as we infamously understand them consist of poor folks, usually black or brown, drug misuse that leads to poor people seeking irrational and sometimes pernicious means to support the drug misuse. It also consists of poor people feeling less worthy because of the dilapidated conditions that surround them; and when people don’t feel good about themselves they tend not to feel good about those around them. So, the misused, overused, and terribly stigmatizing term’ black-on-black crime’ germinates

Connecting the dots, American policy created gangs. Systemic police violence in poor hoods like North Lawndale and Watts is a reaction to the institutional violence that created the intra-community violence sadly synonymous with the hood. Read or watch any primary accounts of the origins of the Crips and it will tell you that one of the reasons they formed was to protect their communities from the police. Young people created organizations to protect themselves from the police…

Young people created organizations to protect themselves from the police.

(cacophony from the background…)

But, now that we know this, why do we still kill each other? “We should just stop the killing if we know this,” is the argument some proffer. This argument, though understandable, misses a bit of context of how trauma and trust works. It also, assumes that these institutional policies no longer exist.

“The racially disparate impact of Ferguson’s practices is driven, at least in part, by intentional discrimination in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Racial bias and stereoptyping is evident from the facts, taken together. The evidence includes: the consistency and magnitude of the racial disparities throughout Ferguson’s police and court enforcement actions; the selection and execution of police and court practices that disproportionately harm African Americans and do little to promote public safety; the persistent exercise of discretion to the detriment of African Americans; the apparent consideration of race in assessing threat; and the historical opposition to having African Americans live in Ferguson, which lingers among some today” [Emphasis added].

According to these findings, Black folks can’t “just get over the past,” but the past is very much the present. Hence, how can trust be expected — in Ferguson or anywhere else where poverty and Black people co-exist?

Does this not explain why Eric Garner resisted? Or why Sandra Bland resisted? Or why we kill and re-traumatize each other on street corners through violence? We don’t trust. Trust is a commodity in poor black and brown communities where overconsumption of capricious state intervention into every aspect of daily life has toppled neighborliness? The focus of community-police relations has made invisible the need to build community-to-community relations?

Trust is inextricably linked to trauma. Mental distress does not wither away like the wind, nor does it dissipate with increased access to resources. Bill de Blasio, President Obama, and Erica Holder- men of success and money have all expressed their mental distress associated with raising black children amid discriminatory policing practices. They, however, are able to use their access to afford their children safety, and mitigate their trauma in ways most are unable…the way others like Samaria Rice and Janet Cooksey cannot.

“But the cases of Tamir Rice, Bettie Jones and Quintonio Legrier were accidental,” I can hear the cacophony in the background claiming.

In response I ask, are accidents less traumatizing? Amadou Diallo was an accident. Sean Bell was an accident. Aiyana Stanley Jones was an accident. Rekia Boyd was an accident. Eleanor Bumpers was an accident.

Too many accidents can be understood as intention — conscious or subconscious. Presumptively, the abundance of ‘accidents’ by law enforcement could be understood as systemic mens rea, a guilty mind, to harm Black and Brown folks of all ages and genders. Yet, the law repeatedly gives police departments who have been documented to harm poor black people no such mens rea. The law demonstrates a trust for law enforcement, but not for the people most vulnerable to the law — poor people. Logically, distrust is reciprocated, but with more pervasive consequences. Distrust for law enforcement creates a situation where the only option for help is replaced with helplessness — a desert of tools or resources to deal with social problems. Thus, social disorganization stokes criminality, and criminality thrives when there is no trust.

That’s how trauma works. It exists, it is triggered, and it can have irrational reactions. It can exist in the form of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It creates distrust — distrust that can take years and generations to dissolve. We don’t ask descendants of The Holacaust to “just get over” the slaughter of millions of people solely because of their ethnicity and religion. We don’t ask survivors of the Vietnam War to just get over their experiences while in combat.

Yet, the cacophony in the background (you know who you are) chastise Black people to recover from violence that is recent as Laquan McDonald’s assassination…Bettie Jones’ assassination…Quintonio Legrier…Tamir Rice’s assassination…Rekia Boyd’s assassination…Eric Garner’s assassination…Aiyanna-Stanley Jones’ assassination…Ramarley Graham’s assassination…Sean Bell’s assassination…Eleanor Bumpers assassination and so many others. Why would we expect folks to just move past the systemic oppression that is evident in the system of mass incarceration that exists today — not 70 years ago, but right now. The institutional violence of racist and discriminatory policies still hurts us Black and Brown folks today. The effects of mass incarceration targeted towards Black and Brown poor people can’t be pardoned or washed away through 6,000 prison releases or a VICE documentary.

So, I ask you this, now that we have connected the dots, “what will it take for us to be brave enough to pool our collective intellect and imagination to create systems of community empowerment that do not involve militaristic elements?” Police are structured to fight crime, and guess what…when you fight crime, crime fights back. In NYC, NYPD Commissioner, Bill Bratton, advocated for the addition of 1,000 new police officers to address the spike in violent crime in NYC during the first half of 2015. Capitulating to political pressure, mostly from the police unions, the NYC City Council, known for being vocal against police misconduct, gave Bratton what he asked for and added an extra 300 officers to the 1,000 requested. The return on investment was a 20% increase in homicides in NYC. So, what did the increase in police produce? It produced crime fighting back…

…and crime — crime in poor Black and Brown communities are the product of poverty. Watts, LA, Brownsville, Brooklyn, Jackson, Mississippi, North Lawndale, Chicago are all poor neighborhoods. They were poor in the 1960’s and they are poor today. Police fought crime in those communities in the 1960’s, and they fight crime there now. And crime has fought back every time because crime is fueled by aggression; it is propelled by force; it is stoked by crime fighting. If you add a fire to fire, the fire just continues to conflagrate. The fire requires water, not only to the flame, but to the root of the spark.

The spark in neighborhoods like where baby Tamir and baby Aiyanna were killed and where young Gakirah Barnes was killed are stoked and kept ablaze by the poverty; by the racist redlining; by the criminalization of drug use; by white supremacist ideologies actualized through policies and practices like mass incarceration and militarized policing. Coupled with discriminatory policy and rhetoric by political figures, unconsciously or consciously, like Bill Clinton (tough on crime), Ronald Regan (war of drugs) George Wallace (“segregation now and forever”), J. Edgar Hoover (CoINTELPro), and most recently, Donald Trump (everything he says); those are the fuels that cause unaddressed trauma that explodes into gang violence and state violence towards its citizens.

(cacophony from the background…)

“But innovators in law enforcement are working to reform these problems.”

Interrogating this information even further, Bratton has emphasized the need to increase police-community relations in NYC. Community policing is the latest overused vogue term in law enforcement, like “tough on crime” was to the 1970’s,1980’s and Clinton’s 1990’s. Interestingly, a look into the NYPD proposed budget for 2016 discloses that the Community Affairs department whose focus is to, “to foster positive and productive police-community relations,” is the least funded area within the NYPD. What does that say about a system that purports to want to heal the chasm between community residents and its officers?

Further, what does it say about champions of police reform that are not bold enough to think about ways to accentuate and better resource the strengths of the community? What does it say when we are only capable of seeking ways to improve the police, instead of ways to improve the communities law enforcement “police”? Police were designed to fight crime and to protect property; not to create safer communities. They are not capable or equipped to do so, yet we rely on them to do such things — in poor communities. If only law enforcement professionals would take an assessment of their practice and objectively re-evaluate their role in communities, instead of seeing any attempt to re-evaluate their roles as an attack on their practice. If only we can collectively imagine, theorize, then demonstrate ways to address the root of the fire, and not just the fire.

I want to do that. I want to create spaces in violence-ridden hoods, that reflect the neighborhoods we deserve. Quoting a dear friend and gun violence prevention warrior, Derick Scott, “I want bring the neighbor back to the –hood. Will you help me now that we have connected the dots?

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This essay was first published on Medium on January 4, 2016. Reprinted with the author’s permission.

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MARLON PETERSON is a national social and criminal justice advocate, writer, organizational trainer, community organizer, and educator who spent 10 years in New York State prisons. He is the founder and chief re-imaginator of The Precedential Group, a social justice consulting firm, and a 2015 recipient of the prestigious Soros Justice Fellowship. He is the former Director of Community Relations at The Fortune Society, and previously served as the Associate Director of the Crown Heights Community Meditation Center, founding coordinator of Youth Organizing to Save Our Streets, and co-Founder of How Our Lives Link Altogether (HOLLA!). Marlon also serves as board chair of Families for Freedom and board member of New Yorkers Against Gun Violence. Marlon is a member of the New York City Task Force to Combat Gun Violence. He holds an A.A.S. in Criminal Justice from Ashworth University and a BS in Organizational Behavior from New York University. Marlon believes all the work he does is what he likes to call people work. As a writer, he is a member of the writing collective Brothers Writing to Live. His writings have appeared in Ebony, Gawker, The Crime Report, Black Press USA, The Brooklyn Reader, and featured in the internationally acclaimed blog, Humans of New York. His essays also appear in How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America by Kiese Laymon, and Love Lives Here, Too, by Sheila Rule. He will be the NYCWP’s Afternoon Keynote Speaker at its annual Teacher to Teacher Conference on April 2, 2016. Marlon is working on a project called Child Safe Zones that is exploring ways to reduce community violence and police violence. He imagines a neighborhood were no one feels the need to carry a gun — not even the police.

 

Once monthly, the New York City Writing Project celebrates the teacher-as-writer by publishing works of poetry and prose written by its teachers. If you are interested in submitting your work to NYCWP Voices, please read the submissions guidelines and submit your work by email to voices@nycwritingproject.org.

 

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Note: These two poems were written during the NYCWP’s writing marathon at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Creativity Now. The works of art that inspired the writing are included for reference.

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Apartment Houses, (oil painting with sand and charcoal-“art brut”)
by Jean Dubuffet

I am square in a square window.
I am grey in a square window.
I am round in a square grey window.
I stand in a tall white window.
I look out from a balcony window.
I look out of a square grey window.
I wait in a square white window.

Stores below: a cafe-bar, a shoe store, a shop for clothing.
Parts of the buildings are brown.
Parts of the street are brown.
Two people, outside,
Talk to one another.

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Le Pont de Passy et la Tour Eiffel, 1911, by Marc Chagall (The Bridge of Passy and the Eiffel Tower)

I am a blue horse
standing near the red Tour Eiffel.
Brick lines the walk, makes a wall.
Where does the train go?
It passes the Pont.

I see blue water –
Or is that a line on the wall?
I see another horse –
Or is that just my reflection?

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Mindy Levokove is a multimedia performance poet and teaching artist.  She has taught a variety of art subjects (including quilt making workshops, finger puppets, poetry, shadow puppet theater workshops, movement) as well as adult literacy, adult numeracy, and health and family literacy.  She’s composed music and performed in her own and others’ theater and dance pieces and is a regular choreographer- site coordinator with Water Dances, an international dance and education group that “dances for water”, in multiple sites, all around the world, every other year.  Recently, she’s been published in The Literary Review East, with another poem coming out this month; and next month, 3 poems will appear in the 12th Annual Brevitas Celebration Anthology.  She is a proud member.

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