[Peace-discuss] more than a nuisance

[Ricky Baldwin]

My opinion may not be popular on either of these lists, but I think I ought to explain where I'm coming from.

In the nineties I worked for ACORN - an association I was never prouder of than in this last election.  As a lone NYC Council member once said in another context - about not so different attacks on poor people organizing for their rights to vote, to improve their communities, to live in decent housing and safe neighborhoods, attacks by people who oppose all those things - "It is a badge of honor!"

When I was at ACORN I spent my days and evenings six days a week walking around in the poorest, most dangerous (a.k.a. "worst") neighborhoods in the cities where I worked, talking to people who lived in toxic environments.  There were many rats, and in Buffalo skunks, garbage in the streets not swept by the city, abandoned buildings, vacant lots.  When it rained water cascaded down the walls of the living rooms and kitchens where we sat and talked and they offered me orange juice and tried to figure out why I wasn't married and we planned the next meeting and how to get the press interested and which local preachers might help and which might get in the way, which cops were honest and which were dangerous criminals.  Front doors of apartment buildings didn't lock or had been broken for months.  Some people were afraid to go out into the hallways in their own building because of the violence and violent people going in and out, or living next door, down
 the hall, just up stairs.

These were hazards, nightmares, not mere "nuisances".

 
Landlord after landlord refused to fix anything, get rid of any dangerous tenants haunting the buildings, or take any responsibility at all.  People in these communities were trapped.  They lived there because they had few options, and there was very little recourse.  We organized together and fought the landlords, pressured city government to hold them accountable, and demanded that the landlords and the local government take some responsibility for the neglect and toxicity of those neighborhoods.  It was always an uphill climb, because money and influence and property rights were always on the other side.  

We won some, one piece at a time, but in truth we lost more often.  I think a lot of us know that song.  Even the victories were often mixed bags, but we improved real lives.

I do have concerns about the proposed "Nuisance Ordinance" - some along the lines I think expressed by Charlie Smyth - and I'd like to see a more community-based, even complaint-driven system, rather than reliance on the police - but overall I support this effort.  I hope I've explained why.  

I continue to support efforts to expose and address police racial profiling and other abuses of power.  I still hope we as a community can strengthen the police review board some day soon.  But I do not see this ordinance as repressive on its face, but potentially very progressive.

In Solidarity,
Ricky


"Speak your mind even if your voice shakes." - Maggie Kuhn



      
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/archive/peace-discuss/attachments/20090210/b9da4752/attachment.htm