Dear Loved Ones,
As I sit here, waiting for my laundry to dry in the Laundromat next to my apartment, I watch three alcoholics, wasted out of their minds, attempt to fight anyone who doesn’t shake their drunk hands or say hi when walking by. (They are all over 50 years old.)
This sight is more than just a terribly sad one. This sight inflicts a tense feeling inside me that I have felt almost every day over the past few weeks. I have experienced this feeling on the Subway, walking back to my apartment, and outside the window of my school. Although I can’t quite describe this feeling I can remember feeling it for the very first time.
It was a normal morning two and a half weeks ago. I took the 6 train up one stop and got out on 125th street station to transfer to the 4. I was in my normal place on the platform, at the normal time, feeling the normal state of extreme sleepiness only to find the normality interrupted by a haunting sound and motion behind me. Quick to turn my neck with the rest of the crowd I noticed a tooth fly to ground as a 17 or 18 year old girl holds her bleeding mouth, in shock. The woman who smacked her harder than any hit to the face I have ever seen was an unrelated, unknown 30 something mother. She had her 4 or 5 year old son right behind her. Waiting for the girl to strike back, the platform was silent. That was it though, and as the mom yelled at the girl something about protecting her son and old Hispanic woman screamed “Llame la policia! Llame la policia!” (call the police)
As confused as you probably are about what caused the altercation, I stepped onto the train. Two minutes into the ride I learned that the girl shoved the mom’s son out of the way as she walked off the train moments before and mouthed off to her when the mother informed the girl of her mistake. I learned this from the father who had to calm his young 5 year old son down. I listened with that feeling in full tact as the son showed extreme fear in his eyes asking “Daddy, are we safe?” The Dad informs the son why the young girl was hit and said “This is why we are on the way to school…so you can become smart and use your head instead of your hands to solve problems. Only people who aren’t smart enough use violence as an answer.”
As the feeling died down that day it crept up again on me the next day. Doing work in the teacher’s center at my school my attention was disrupted by the change in the noise outside. Instead of hearing the sound of kids playing I heard noise that sounded a bit off; it sounded like fighting. I was right and it took longer than what should be expected to stop it too. (the fighting wasn’t between students at my school but the school below us).
I felt the feeling again the next day as I was sharing my stories with another teacher who told me one of hers. Walking back from our school to the subway station she said she witnessed a horrific sight. She heard a man yelling at another man, “Give me my money!” while a third man was being chased by a pit bull. The dog caught up to the man and began tearing at his leg. At this sight the man who was yelling said, “This is what happens when you don’t give me my money” as his ‘associates’ were laughing hysterically at the violence.
Rather than share with you more stories of violence I have witnessed or heard about, thus furthering your fear for my safety, I’ll choose to discuss what this feeling has taught me or got me thinking about here. (And, by the way, I have never felt unsafe. Though there is violence around me it is directly a cause of the actions and bad choices of the participants. You should not fear for me, for I am safe). This feeling is one that gets my heart beating, my blood boiling, and my mind wandering. I think about what the father said to the son: “This is why we are on the way to school…so you can become smart and use your head instead of your hands to solve problems. Only people who aren’t smart enough use violence as an answer.” How do I get my students to see this? How do I stop my students from joining gangs and instead open up books and become community leaders? How do I invest them?
Seeing this violence makes me hurt so much for the state of our nation; for the state of our world. How is it that people come to find survival through violence? It’s one thing to read about it in the newspapers or see it in movies, but when you see it and it’s raw, it’s altogether different. This feeling is not one that is unique, I’m sure, because I know you would feel it to. This feeling hits me right in the face as to what my job has the potential do. If I can invest my students, show them how to solve conflict and teach them to succeed and rise above then maybe I can keep another young child from having to fear for his or her safety while waiting for the morning 4 train.
for the wild,
Andrew
