"Precious" and reflections on sameness and difference

These past 2 days I have been home sick with the flu and watched dvds to entertain myself. One was the movie “Precious” which was pretty disturbing. It reminded me of when I had been a community organizer in the Bronx for a couple of years way back in the very early 90’s before coming to Indonesia.

1921 Morris Ave was one of the first buildings I was given to organize. It was a city owned building which meant that due to extreme neglect or debt the city had taken ownership of the building from the owner.  At first it was just an address on a folder in a stack of folders I had been given. Inside the folders were very sparse notes on building conditions and some tenant meeting attendance sheets.

I was acutely self-conscious walking on the side streets of the neighborhood. At nighttime I was more anonymous but honestly I was scared sh*tless seeing people lined up to buy drugs and the flashy sports cars zooming up and down the streets with the cops choosing to stay on the main streets unless they came in force to surround and raid a particular location. The “good” people in the neighborhood I knew just would not be out on the streets at night.

Following community organizing principles I “doorknocked” all the doors in the building which meant introducing myself as a new organizer from the neighborhood organization, trying to get a sense of what people felt were the important issues and try to get them to commit to attend a tenants’ meeting in the lobby later that week.  I met a lot of people since many of them were not working. There were a lot of single mothers and also a number of people who were obviously crack addicts. Knocking on each door I could hear what was going on inside and the reaction to me coming. Loud music, yelling, strange and strong smells were amplified by my fear, discomfort and desire to prove something, that I could organize and move these people towards change.

The first meeting was surprisingly well attended.  I was excited to see so many people young and old, African American, Latino, and even one white lady. I felt the possibility of unity and change in the air.

I tried to pull out the issues that were on people’s minds and make connections to the general situation in the building, hoping to build a common agenda. But the meeting quickly spiraled out of control. Some people were high, others had brought bottles to the meeting, they were exhilarated with the opportunity to vent, and then suddenly they were angry, unfocused, and ranting. In the midst of this chaos this little old Irish woman came up to me, hit and started scratching me. She thought I was a representative of the landlord and went on this 10 minute diatribe denouncing me and the landlord.  Everyone thought this was pretty funny and the atmosphere simultaneously sobered and lightened up.

On the way home after more than a few beers of my own I had the chance to reflect. Being young, idealistic and thickheaded I told myself it was a great experience while in my gut I dreaded going back.  But go back I did. Almost every day I went back and doorknocked each apartment in each of my buildings getting to know the residents.

My leaders in 1921 Morris turned out to include “Dimples” who was taller and larger than Precious but with one leg somewhat withered and bent making her gait fragile and lopsided, highlighting an unexpected vulnerability in someone so big. I asked her why people called her Dimples and she broke out a wide, sweet smile complete with a surprisingly adorable dimple.

There was “Wanda” who stuttered uncontrollably, always reeked of alcohol and usually had a 40 oz bottle of malt liquor nearby. Wanda’s apartment was a mess and her two young boys seemed sullen and lost and she would berate them fiercely for seemingly small infractions. The other residents told me that the boys’ father had frequently and severely beaten Wanda and that’s why she stuttered. Sometimes she would be so incredibly lucid, present and beautiful. Other times she would be lost in worlds I could only guess at. 

There was “B.K.” a Latina lesbian living with her partner and two boys. B.K. was a former heroin addict who was taking methadone. She was hard to keep up with and I don't know how well I knew her past a certain level. She would seemingly nonstop watch pirated VHS horror movies and ask me to watch with her. Since she was quickly elected the president of the tenants’ association I would often keep her company and sit in her kitchen as she brewed and drank strong coffee and we discussed recent developments, strategy etc. We'd also gossip and she'd share stories of past relationships. I'd share my long distance relationship woes which meant intermittent and at times sustained celibacy. 

I would spend a lot time with all my tenant leaders but with these women from 1921 Morris Ave. I developed close relationships. I’d come with a yellow pad full of notes about what I wanted to talk about, the prep work for an upcoming building meeting, trying to make connections to issues in other city owned buildings, neighborhood meetings on crime etc.  But looking back what these women really wanted was someone to talk to, someone to just be there and listen. I think they attended at least half of the meetings to humor me, so that I would feel good, like I was getting something done. Believing in the possibility of change was something that would not come easy to them.  The greatest help I could give was to be present. To listen and hear their stories of the lives they had lived, the struggles and difficulties.  Surprisingly accompanying their stories was much laughter, lightness and openness. Sometimes I would come in the middle of some household drama and hear yelling and banging from outside the door but they would still invite me inside and after sitting for awhile some incredibly complex and tragic story would emerge.  I was shocked by the tenderness and intimacy in their stories and the sudden anger or rage that would emerge if a child did the wrong thing or asked for attention.

But I have come to realize that there was no action that Dimples, B.K., Wanda or anyone else in that neighborhood did that I am also not capable of. No feeling, no anger, rage, pain, blame towards self and loved ones that I am also not capable of feeling or manifesting. The transparent self justification, running from pain, denial, and addiction is part of the sameness we share as human beings. Oppressor/oppressed, victim/abuser, exploited/exploited all inseparable turning in on each other and transforming into the other like some yin yang of suffering. Along with the light there is the capacity for darkness and we share this equally without exception.  The older I get and the deeper I look inside myself the truer this is.

Tenants would often offer me food but I really didn’t feel comfortable accepting because I knew their resources were limited. Sometimes though they would bring over food to the office when they knew I was there working late. This I gladly could not refuse. In one building – 1985 Creston Ave., we had a really successful rent strike and during the height of the conflict I was like a celebrity. People would often bring food or snacks to the office.  This was in a building that was mostly Latino and my Spanish was minimal. There were more intact families here and the men played a more visible and stable role in families and the tenant association. There were also far fewer drug apartments with open sales of drugs than in 1921 Morris. The first tenant meeting there were only four people. I remember translating what I wanted to say into Spanish and reading off my yellow pad in their lobby. But persistence made up for lack of skills and I kept coming back and kept talking about tenants’ rights in incoherent Spanish. I would doorknock for every meeting and eventually some more people started coming. Then someone even started translating for me which I took as a sign that they actually wanted to hear what I was saying. Then folks started talking to each other, in rapidfire Spanish, passionately and at length. About what I had no idea. Next thing you know the rent strike was on.  Since the landlord refused to come to any meetings we found out where he lived in Westchester, N.Y. and a whole bunch of tenants went to picket in front of his house and flyer his neighborhood. We got the city to take the landlord to court and the judge took away control of the building and gave it to a not for profit housing company to bring it up to code. The landlord was written up as one of the 10 worst landlords in that year’s Village Voice and I was quoted in the article. Heady stuff for a young organizer set on changing the world.

But it was like living and working in a pressure cooker. The problems were horrific and relentless. Without meditation I had no way to deal with everything and had no way to separate work from the rest of my life. I was constantly caught between how things were and how I wanted them to do be. I was frustrated seeing how elusive tangible change was. Where was the revolution? In the 2 years I was there I had become one of the senior organizers in the coalition of neighborhood associations and was supposed to be heading an area wide effort to organize city owned buildings.  I had seen tens of staff come and go and this included young, white college educated idealists, as well as African Americans and Latinos from the neighborhood or similar neighborhoods and young college educated and idealistic people of color like me. I had very close and strong relationships with my tenant leaders and had started to bring them onto the board of the neighborhood association of which I was the lead organizer and staff director. But I was young, my blood was hot and I decided to leave.

A sense of sadness and immediate distance is what my closest tenant leaders greeted my news about leaving with. I promised I would still come visit them and for awhile I did and sitting in their kitchens or living rooms it quickly felt like old times. But soon I was on to the next great adventure – Indonesia. I left because I wanted to and with a good education and no family responsibilities at the time I could.

After a few years while visiting the U.S., I came back to visit the old neighborhood and my old friends at 1921 Morris Ave. With me were 2 friends, husband and wife, white, very decent people from the program with which I had gone to Indonesia with. The neighborhood had changed quite a bit, become more stable and cleaner. Yet I felt the need to establish how dangerous the neighborhood had been as if my “street credibility” was in question. 1921 Morris was totally different too and I tried to find someone I still knew. B.K. was there. She told me Wanda was gone, someone else's daughter had been shot to death and Dimples had died of AIDS. B.K. took a look at my white friends and immediately asked me why I had come back, if I wanted to show off to my friends, as if this was some tourist sight. Cutting words that wounded me, but revealing more than a little truth.

Reflecting and remembering I feel a lot of sadness and regret. Not that I left but how my leaving exposed how fundamentally different our fates and lives could be. The priceless freedom of choice, to decide to leave and do something else, to shape my life the way I wanted it to be. That difference was an unbridgeable one.

May Dimples know she was loved

May Wanda and her boys have found a better place in life

May B.K. and her loved ones be happy

May I always cherish what they shared with me

May I remember our essential sameness no matter how different our lives may be

here's an article from the NYT on The Obesity - Hunger Paradox in places like the Bronx. Surprising but true and not only in the Bronx. Indonesia's poorer neighborhoods have a similar phenomenon.

I would like to acknowledge inspiration for this post from a post by Erica at Urban Refuge: http://urbanrefuge.ning.com/profiles/blogs/not-a-cholo and another post by Maia at Jizo Chronicles: http://jizochronicles.wordpress.com/2010/03/14/harmony-of-difference-and-sameness/ as well as influence from numerous others from the surprisingly vibrant and lively Buddhist blogger community. Thank you!