it’s a beautiful day here on the west side (of philadelphia that is). the sky is nice and blue, the clouds are wispy, and a light breezed brings a pleasant still to the neighborhood. all that’s missing is a girlfriend to sit by me and enjoy the moment. haha ^^ as i was sitting out on our little porch reading, i started to reach for a cigarette, but then stopped. i guess i felt it would be sacrilegious to burn a newport on such a nice day. then i heard the ice cream man drive by . . . and it made me want to blog.
almost funny inequalities
i just finished kozol’s savage inequalities. not a bad book. the more i read about our nation’s schools, the more interested i become . . . if i go to law school i think i might want to focus my attention to education reform . . . hmmm . . . my first-hand experiences with inner-city schools has been pretty limited, and didn’t see things quite as bad as what kozol described, but here’s a story:
my roommates and i went to go see a middle school girl’s basketball game at a school across the street from our apartment to support one of the girls at our church. ben, if you’re reading this, you can attest to how ridiculous it was. imagine 10 full-grown women crammed into a less than half-court court (where the three point line on both sides met mid-court), in a room meant to be an auditorium, shuffling around for position, but can’t really do anything because the ref (who obviously had some major complex-issues) keeps on calling 5-second violations in keys that take up half the playing space. it was madness . . . but the players kept on playing (or at least trying to), and the small audience (sitting in uneven rows of hastily set up metal chairs) kept on cheering – as if this was the norm. this story is pretty trite next to those you’ll find in books . . . but it’s a memory i’ll never forget. and y’all know that nothing like this would ever fly in radnor or mercer island schools.
privileged pacifism
not long ago i was involved in a little scuffle with some dude who tried taking my laptop on my walk home from the trolley. in living here (and chicago) i’ve learned the meaning of “watching your back”, and saw him running at me by his shadow. after a little struggle, i punched him in the stomach and elbowed him to the back of the head and ran home. taught that dude not to mess with nerdy looking asian kids walking down the street with their school bags.
i’m sure my resort to physical action disappoints some of you . . . but let me assure you, i was disappointed in myself too – the first time it happened. the first time a guy messed with me on the street, i took the insults and trash he threw at me for as long as i could, but when he started pushing up on me and threatening some serious violence, i clocked him good. i returned home suuuper depressed, as if i had betrayed some great part of me, and that i had failed as a christian.
but over the course of the next few days, i realized that i wasn’t, nor was i ever really, a pacifist. i was fake one . . . having never really experienced a situation that put my safety at risk (to that extent), it was easy for me to preach non-violence. these days i think that those who advocate for non-violence simply for non-violence-sake are spoiled, and exercise little more than privileged pacifism. cause it’s easy to cry “peace, peace!” when there’s no violence around you. but when faced with the dangerous realities of what goes on in this world, forgive me for sounding jaded, sometimes violence is unavoidable.
and just a disclaimer, i’m not saying violence is the answer. another story to illustrate my point: while my roommate and i played some night football with neighborhood kids (man that was some intense football . . .), a couple of gang bangers started making a little trouble. one pulled me by my hair and said, “the fuck are you china man? you their coach or something?” now HERE was the time to be an example of peace. even though i wanted nothing more than to break the guy’s arm off, the guys we were playing with were watching. they soon sided with us and said, “naw, these guys are our friends.” and told us not to mind them too much – “theyz no good.”
the ice cream man
one of my first memories of living in chicago was the ice cream man. he’d drive up and down west end and maypole street (referred to by the cops as the “shitty street”) selling his goods to a slightly off version of fur elise. all was good and well, until we started hearing his truck drive around at 1am. the dude was obviously selling more than sponge bobsicles.
… umm … i forget where i was going with this story. haha. anyway, the ice cream truck that came by earlier reminded me of my chicago home.
i should get back to work. -chris
