I saw this episode once on Tales From The Hood. This little boy came to school with bruises on his body and he said a monster did it. This perplexed his teachers because surely this couldn’t be an actual monster. But the little boy proceeded to insist it was a monster. He drew pictures of this giant green entity with razor sharp teeth and big hands. In the end, we discovered the monster was really his mother’s boyfriend who beat him from time to time. But the little boy never drew him as a person, just as a monster; interesting the perspective of children, the innocence and fragility of their minds. I imagine this is how they see her, a monster. Even though her face looks gentle, her blonde hair pushed back into a pony tail and her petite figure causing no stirs among the neighbors. Then again, I don’t know what it’s like to wake up to a growl like they do. Even if I did, it’s different when you’re a kid and just the slightest increase in tempo rattles your entire body. At best all you need is a look and you are frozen in mother’s authority and your mind is prepared to listen. But a growl? I don’t want to wonder what that’s like. That’s what I wake up to most mornings. At first, I didn’t think the woman had any children. I thought maybe she was cursing out her man. A slew of profanity escaped her mouth like I hadn’t heard since I banished it from my very own vocabulary. I envisioned her entire presence overtook the house. I’d be willing to bet she grows claws and turns green in her spare time. Only to shapeshift back into the harmless little lady we see walking to the bus stop. I don’t understand people who abuse children; it is a most cowardly act. When I discovered my neighbor was ripping the heads off her own children it disgusts me. But it did not disgust me more than actually seeing the babies. I wanted to just cry. They did not have little bruise marks on their bodies like the little boy in the movie. It’s just that they are small children. I would not have guessed someone was speaking this way to children all under ten years old. And then one day, I saw that one of them is in a wheelchair. So you have two very small children and one is disabled. I don’t understand the logic that goes into this kind of behavior. This is why self-love is so important. How can you mistreat what came from your own body, except you have no love for yourself. Without self-love, nothing can be accomplished. We cannot love ourselves, we cannot love our neighbors, and we cannot love those around us. More frightening than our inability to love, we cannot be loved. Self-hatred illuminates. It surrounds you like a plague and can be smelled from a distance. It causes you to act out of character and abuse anyone who tries their hand at loving you. Because you have not given it to yourself, you are unwilling to accept it from anyone else nor are you willing to give it. Be careful the way that you treat your children, they are a reflection of you and they have no shame in keeping it real. If their mouth does not reveal who you are their actions will. It’s funny, I can always tell the true intentions of a person just by looking at the behavior of their children and interestingly enough, the parents never seem to notice. Be careful how you treat your children, whether you notice it or not, their actions reveal who you truly are.
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Don’t BeStressed, #BeWoW – My BeWoW Post
My submission for this week
episode of Ron’s BeWoW Blogshare is on mental strength and stability.
We often attempt to plan every second of our lives. As a result, our
minds are clouded by a conglomerate of possible and maybes that did not
turn out the way we intended. While preparation is good, over analyzing
and planning increases stress. You cannot relax long enough for things
to work themselves out smoothly because you’re too busy planning ahead.
You have no time for the present moment because you’re always thinking
about the next. Time then passes you by and before you know it today is a
memory. The question is now: what did we make of it? It is important to
work hard, and to fill each day with some kind of task but do not
forget to breathe. Don’t forget to smile. Don’t forget to hug the person
next to you or do something for someone else for a change. Let things
run their course as they were intended to. I understand this is easier
said than done and it may even require you to give up certain pleasures
for the sake of peace in your mind. This is important because the mind
is where it all begins, it is higher than the physical and where the
spiritual dwells. A lot of times we think we are weak in certain areas
when we’re not. The weakness instead is in the mind. It is clouded by
unnecessary burdens we place on ourselves. Plan, organize, and structure,
but go with the flow too. Don’t continue to allow yourself to
BeStressed because life is too short. Instead, clear your mind. It may
be hard to find, but try to discover the reasons why and let things
happen as they will without factoring your genius in the equation.
**************
And that’s my BeWoW for today. Yall be great.
– EC
My “Something You Didn’t Know” Blog-Share: Memoir Sample
Concrete Children – Life inside the Robert Taylor Projects
My name is Yecheilyah Ysrayl, also known as “EC” but a lot of people don’t know that I was born Stacey Hereford on May 26, 1987 at Billings Hospital on the south side. I actually changed my name back in 2008, a year after my road to self-discovery and identity had begun.
The unique thing about my birth is that I was not born alone but I have a twin sister as well, but I will not reveal her name because I did not get her permission to do so. I also have two other sisters and three brothers but my twin and I are the youngest. So total, between my mom and dad there are seven of us. We grew up in the Robert Taylor Projects on Chicago’s south side. When it opened, The Robert Taylor homes housed up to a peak of 27,000 people, although they were built to maintain only 11,000 and comprised of 28 high-rise buildings; with 16 stories each, and a total of 4,415 units, mostly arranged in U-shaped clusters of three, stretching for two miles. It was located in the Bronzeville neighborhood of the south side of Chicago, on State Street between Pershing Road (39th Street) and 54th Street alongside the Dan-Ryan expressway.
“If yo mama’s on dope and yo frigerator’s broke go to chokes! Go to chokes!”
I didn’t make that up, it was an actual song. We sang the hood hymn down the hall of the largest housing project in the country. We sang from the eighth floor to the first every chance we got to make it to the free breakfast program offered by CHA, or Chicago Housing Authority. It was nicknamed chokes because the sandwiches were so dry we were sure to die of thirst if water didn’t deliver us. Yet these raggedy choke sandwiches erupted inside of us a sense of excitement every week, surely preferable to the empty air soup available at the moment. Like most of the families who resided in the buildings, our mother’s twitching mouth and search for the white stuff on the floor proved that the 1980s crack epidemic had taken root especially well, and was a normal scene. For a while I didn’t understand why they bent so much so, wetting their finger slightly before placing it back in their mouth after its short journey to the floor. What they tasted I did not know, but became used to seeing their backs bent in anxious investigation of the corners of the house. I didn’t understand then about the invisible shards of cocaine embedded in the cracks of the floor or the disappointing realization that it is just white paper. But since many of the people who hung around were drug addicts, I became accustomed to such behaviors and could tell at an early age when someone was high. It was not splinters of judgment coming from the walking planks of my childhood perspective; it’s just that to us it was normal. Their faces contorted as their entire presence was invaded by an outside force they could not control. It was more than a decision to get high, it was a need. I imagine the ecstasy of it all took them places, sat them on the tops of clouds and let them see the room spin. They picked imaginary lint from their clothing and laughed at jokes only they were in on. I imagine worry lifted itself from their shoulders piece by piece until peace descended like nothing before and everything was right in the world. At this point nothing is more important than getting back the feeling of the first hit. Every other moment after that is a quest to repeat the trip to the moon the demons took them on. Not even food was more important than feeling that same feeling again. It’s not like they were in their right minds; it is taken out of their heads and resting somewhere in another dimension. They steal and sometimes kill to be taken to this place and they don’t see you. There is no focus on anything but the next hit until they come down from the clouds they’ve been riding. But the urge and thirst of it makes them want it again almost instantly. They are walking zombies, vampires seeking to do whatever it takes to draw blood. It is the price of being hooked, and if they could, they would sell their soul to the devil for a chance to get high. Everything is happy and forgetful all at the same time. They scratched, laughed, talked, and from my naïve perspective they even seemed to love better.
The Robert Taylor Homes faced many of the same problems that doomed other high-rise housing projects in Chicago such as Cabrini Green. Whether it was drugs, violence, murder, disease, you name it, it happened here. The dull, concrete high-rises, many blackened with the scars of fires, sat in a narrow stretch of slum. It seemed the wind carried us to the next step one 4th of July weekend where the wrong turn can be the epitome of a beat down or casual robbery. The tall narrow hallway swallowed us down pee scented stairways and rat infested incinerators. The floors loitered with crack vials, weed and potato chip bags, and walls covered in the scars of spray painted names, profanity, and other scars of wear as we zoomed throughout the building. An explosion of innocence resurrecting our footsteps; unaware of the war taking place on the exterior of where we found hobby. At a time where children had nothing important to ponder except penny candy, concrete children were rocking themselves to sleep on burnt orange sofa’s while their mother’s roamed the streets for the next hit. Fathers were non-existent since their mother’s couldn’t get welfare without them. They were around though, standing on the corners or hiding underneath the beds of women. They were the Uncle Pookie’s and Cousin Ray-Ray’s of hundreds of children who knew them as nothing more than the Big Mike’s of the block. My father wasn’t around either in those early days, at which we’ll explore more deeply later. But today, like all Holidays, was an exception. Our mother’s had sacrificed Food Stamps so that we may take part in the energy of the gods. Today we were sacrificial as a lamb, but tomorrow no one will eat.
The authority of drug dealers overtook CHA (Chicago Housing Authority) and they became the owners. As is common in any hood, dealers fought for control of the buildings. In one weekend, more than 300 separate shooting incidents were reported in the vicinity of the Robert Taylor Homes. Twenty-eight people were killed during the same weekend, with twenty-six believed to be gang-related. Running home from school to escape the presence of gun fire was common for children growing up in the buildings. I can distinctively remember Uncle Huey picking us up from school early as not to be caught in the fury of “wild bulls in a net”. The most noted case is that of little Vinyette. On June 25, 1983, an infant, Vinyette Teague, was abducted from Robert Taylor after her grandmother left her alone in the hallway for a few minutes to answer a phone call. An estimated 50 people were in the hallway at the time of the abduction, but police were unable to gather enough evidence to make any arrests. She has never been seen or heard from since, and her real name I use only because the Newspapers have long since made it public.
Vinyette’s disappearance and the people’s failure to assist in her return was due to the social system that burrowed deeper than the hoods ever infamous rule of “No Snitching”. But due to the extent of poverty, Robert Taylor housing projects developed a system of social welfare and reciprocity between the tenants and gang organizations such as the GD’s (Gangsta Disciples), and BKs, (Black Kings). The gangs protected the tenants and homeless people living in their territory. In return, the gangs were allowed to sell product (drugs) out of the Robert Taylor homes. They also negotiated with the Chicago Housing Authority (who were for the most part scared of the gang members anyway and had little desire to offer assistance to its tenants) for renters. Tenants often exchanged use of appliances for food, money, or services. A community said to have been built to counteract the Chicago slums quickly became an emblem of failure.
End of Memoir Sample
And this has been an EC Blog-Share…whose next?
Something You Didn’t Know – Open Invitation BlogShare
We had quite the drive to Chicago. As a result, my brother came up with a great road trip idea:
Go around the car and each person reveals something about themselves that they didn’t think anyone knew. It was a challenge because we all know each other pretty well but we managed to create enough laughs for memory sake. So anyway, I thought it would be a great idea for a blog-share. (I also want to do this because the internet is so filled with phonies and fakes, but here’s a chance for us to be real with one another. It is the only way to grow.)
So, on your own blog, create a post of your choice that tells us something about you that we didn’t already know. Try to be specific to what can’t be found on your blog or its about page. It can be a short story, a poem, a collection of pictures, or just a small paragraph.
Tag your post #SomethingUDidntKnow and
Pingback to this post so that I see it and can respond and tweet it for you.
Be sure to visit other people’s blogs, like, and re-blog so that others can get in on the fun
My own “Something You Didn’t Know” will follow this post. I first want to give you each the opportunity to understand the rules and tag your post accordingly. (*Try to limit your tags to 15 including categories which act as tags also. This will ensure others will see your post).
So, who’s up for a challenge? I know you’re not gonna leave me hanging here are you? C’mon! Tell us something we didn’t know!
#Ronovan #Writes #BeWoW Prompt – Family
Welcome back to another episode of Ronovan Writes Be Wonderful on Wednesday. As I thought about this prompt, I was led to an older post of mine. As I read it, I could not help but see the family connection. I decided then to incorporate portions of that post into this week’s prompt because it is fitting:
Family…
My nephew has my birthmark on his chest. My face has my mother’s nose, and my smile is etched with my father’s teeth. I interact with the world as if on my own. It never occurs to me that I swing my arms like my Aunt. Or that the decisions I make may have already been made before. After all, they say there is nothing new under the sun. I cannot swim. But maybe that’s because the Great Flood has traumatized me, for I can still taste salt water seas on my tongue. Have you ever thought about the make-up of a blood line? The reality that maybe you inherited these ways only to gift them to someone else one day. I smile at the thought. What would a little girl look like with my eyes, my words and my hands on her hips? How do I know my favorite tree in which to rest my exhausted spirit from the soles of the Earth did not bleed with the stench of my ancestors? And have I ever fathomed why Hurricanes take the exact same route as the slave ships? Can it be that suicides still burn like melted ash upon the ocean floor? Its smoke intermingled with the wind as if to intercourse themselves into one before marching out to the beat of Negro Spirituals I could have sworn I just heard on the radio last night. Or maybe that’s just the Harriet in me. Family. We bond deeper than flesh and thicker than blood. A connection of bodies strung together, we thread ourselves into mixed fabric. Family does not relegate itself to kin, but it surpasses genetics and is reflective in a close friend, a loyal co-worker, a longtime lover. Family is the strength of struggle, reaching down to scrape me off the floor, or build me up when need be. I could Webster dictionary Family, but it is of no use. A dictionary cannot page itself into the substance of what it means to treat others as you yourself would like to be treated, or ponder the reasons why deception never really could separate close friends. Among its many words a dictionary will never fully articulate the experience embodied simply by way of a bloodline. So I suppose I could seek to decipher the definitions behind the syllables but they will not fill me. How could Webster ever fathom the depth of someone who is willing to die for you? This is family.
A photographer on the Baltimore Protests
Just thought I’d share this article as a current events type deal before heading out for today. Though I don’t really get photography as an art far as all the technicalities are concerned (I mean, there are good pictures and then there are…good pictures), I do love the camera myself and I do think photography plays an important role in the unfolding of historical events. Had it not been for photographers, we would not have the opportunity to relive some of the most profound moments in history with such intimacy. As for my thoughts on the specific events rocking the country, I will have to come back with another post when I have more time, however I am led, we will see. Till then stay in tune:
Devin Allen is a self-taught photographer and Baltimore native. His images from the protests following the death of Freddie Gray while in police custody have received thousands of likes and shares on social media. As the situation continued to unfold in his hometown, Fusion caught up with Allen to learn more about his work and the gaps in the narratives being reported on the news versus those being experienced on the ground.
Fusion: So how old are you and how long have you been doing photography?
Devin Allen: Well, I’m 26, and I started photography [about] 3 years ago, in 2013.
Fusion: What got you started?
Devin Allen: Basically, hanging in the city, we don’t have a lot to do…one of my friends actually got me into doing poetry, so I had my own poetry night. But I suck. I can write poetry but I cannot perform. So I had to find a way to give people that poetry feel, but visually, so I started making T-shirts. From there I got into photography. I would take pictures and put them on T-shirts and eventually, I fell in love with it and that became my major outlet since then.
Fusion: How long have you been in Baltimore?
Devin Allen: All my life.
Fusion: Your whole life, so you’re local?
Devin Allen: Yes.
Fusion: What stands out to you about Baltimore when you are taking pictures? What makes Baltimore so interesting to you?
Devin Allen: It’s just real. Baltimore is a real city. It don’t cut no corners. You know, when you get around certain people or certain places it don’t feel real? You know, like everything seems perfect? Baltimore is not that. It’s a beautiful place, it’s like a rose in concrete to me. It’s a beautiful place, but most people don’t see it like I see it. I was born and raised here, so I see the negative, I see the positive. I see the good and the bad. I’ve been on both sides of the fence – both the good side and the bad side. So that’s what it is for me – it’s a beautiful place, and it’s real.
Fusion: When you say you’ve been on the bad side, what do you mean? What is the bad Baltimore that you know and what is the good Baltimore that you know?
Devin Allen: Well, growing up here is very stressful. You can get caught up in a lot of things if you don’t have a strong environment [around you]. Growing up, I got caught up in a lot of foolishness because of friends, where I hung at, and umm…I was raised by my mother and her family, I was raised good, but I just had affection for the streets. I had a lot of friends in the hood who’d run the streets all day, I hung with a lot of people. I lost a lot of friends. I buried both my best friends back in 2013. Both of them were murdered. I lost both my best friends, so they’re like my inspiration. I was just doing whatever, you know, to get the day passed. I tried the school thing, didn’t work. Got a job, but you know it’s hard to stay the narrow with so much stress and negativity. Drugs everywhere, crack-infested, heroin-infested. It’s very difficult, but [an] easy city to get caught up in. As far as being on the bad side, I hung with drug dealers and I ran the streets with some bad people, you know?
Photography actually got me away from that because both my best friends were both murdered; one was murdered on a Friday, and my other best friend was murdered on a Saturday. The only reason I was not with them was because I had photo shoots both days. And that kind of bridged the gap between the streets and my art, and I chose my art over the streets.
Fusion: What would you say about your interactions with the police growing up in Baltimore?
Devin Allen: (Exhales.) Well, I have been subjected to racial profiling. You know, I have had friends beaten by police. I have had police plant drugs on me because they’ve been mad that they didn’t find any.
Time. Growth. Movement.
The PBS Blog 