Adventures of Life on Bang Bang Row

Hey Everyone,

Now, people who read this blog know that I am a transplant from New York. Not the state, the country or township in England, but the city. I'm from the Southside of Jamaica, Queens. For those not sure where that is, just listen to any song from 50 cent's first album, Get Rich or Die Trying. He, along with another Southside Jamaica native and my favorite rapper, Nas, discuss what life is like there. It's gritty, people are cool to you if they know you, and tend to keep an eye out on their own. Growing up there was like growing up back in the day, all the kids played together, everyone ate at everyone's house and all the kids would hang outside playing tag or riding bikes until the streetlights came on. Now, by no means am I saying it was perfect, but the little block club, five whole blocks full of people both on and off welfare, of Blacks, Dominicans, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Chinese and Koreans. I grew up as a racial mutt, not sure where I belonged, and I was accepted by these people wholeheartedly. The area, full of bodegas, allowed all these people of different backgrounds mix and learn from one another. I would eat at old Mrs. Liu's house twice a week, and go to Mr. Riaz's house for lunch. All the kids knew everyone, and all the adults looked out for us, whether they had kids or not. Mr. and Mrs Hiu threw the best Halloween parties, transforming their house into a lavish haunted house with creatures, decorations, and all kinds of scary things that made all the kids scared and we all looked forward to seeing what was different from the year before. Chinese New Year dinners with them were literally amazing, lavish feasts with decorations, all kinds of food and laughs. My mom made the best fried chicken at the neighborhood potluck, and everyone always tried to come to our house for Thanksgiving. Granted, this was the early 90's, in the era of New Jack Swing, but still not that long ago. Amazing how things have changed.

Later on in my childhood, after my parents pretty much decided they couldn't be in a room with one another without trying to kill the other or just be evil to everyone around, including me, I hung out at my dad's place. Later, I would go to stay with my dad for the summers and then full-time for a little while. My father, also lived in Jamaica, but in a neighborhood called St. Albans, about 10 minutes west of my mother's home. St. Albans is like the Beverly community in Chicago, full of sprawling homes on smaller residential streets and little shops on main thoroughfares, but far enough away from the commercial aspect to be annoying. Whenever I'm there, in that neighborhood, I forget the hustle and bustle of regular New York, and almost feel as if I'm somewhere else. The neighborhood has a great history and interesting habitants, like Miles Davis and John Coltrane. To read more about it, go here.  (Ironically, my father is listed as one of its prominent residents). In short, it ain't the Southside of Jamaica. People there are warm and open, kids play together in a nearby park and hang out on someone's large porch until the ice truck came. The kind of neighborhood where you could open a lemonade stand and have water fights. These two places are the places of my prepubescent youth, and I look back on them with fondness and reverie. I miss those days, and often wonder what kind of girl I'd have been if I stayed there. Despite the fact that me and  my father don't get along too well, I think I may have been as well rounded as a person could humanly be. Even though I know I'm still a fairly well-rounded individual even with my Chicago/NYC upbringing.

When I came to Chicago with my mom, we lived in Hyde Park. Now, back then, Hyde Park was not the home of muggings, assaults, murders and rapes that it is today, but basically a neighborhood full of students, older folks, young business people and kids. It wasn't Southside Jamaica, for the lack of crime and sadly for the lack of community. I never felt like I knew any of my neighbors, would never dream of opening a lemonade stand, and always got weird looks from the other kids. Maybe it was because I talked funny. [The NY accent I had until I was about 12 or so, I worked on getting rid of it by watching a lot of CLTV]. Anyway, while I was friends with kids in the Hyde Park area, I never felt truly at home, but I did feel safe.

When I returned home from DC, Mom and I lived on the outskirts of Hyde Park, in Woodlawn. While not as name-brand as living in Hyde Park was, and while the neighborhood had no real sense of community, and the occasional shooting or drug transaction a block or so over from where we lived, but with the Chicago Police and the University of Chicago Police constantly on patrol, I felt safe. 

However, our building in Woodlawn went condo, so the owners told us we could move to where we currently live while the unit was rehabbed and updated, and to this day, I regret taking them up on it. We moved from our place in Woodlawn to drum roll... Englewood!  Now, if you are from Chicago, you know that Englewood is the hood. Straight up, no jokes. There's probably a fight or an argument of some kind every night, and people sell drugs on our corner. Now, I've never been harassed or asked to buy crack, anything like that, but gunshots are something that I hear more than I'd like to, and they truly unnerve me. 

The police seems to be cracking down on a lot of the mess, but one of my guy friends happens to call my block "Bang Bang Row", which I have used lovingly as the title of this blog. My neighborhood is full of people who don't work, and rely on the state for benefits, people who are students at Hustling University, and who seem to have no real ambition or desire to change that. There are gangs, drug dealers and prostitutes here, not in front of my house, but a block or so away. Close enough to be real to me, real like ever before. Now that's not to say my block is bad because people still party, sit on their stoops and people watch all day, but the negative stuff usually has me going inside just before dark. (The man in the Drug Dealer shirt is not a real drug dealer, but Toure, and the tee is part of the Keep a Child Alive project towards helping children with AIDS in Africa. Just so everyone knows that I don't promote drug or drug dealing. For more info, or to get the tee, click here.)

Part of me wonders, from my year of living here, why it is that blacks have to war with each other in trying to hustle? I figure there's enough people addicted to crack for everyone to get a piece of the pie not that I endorse illegal activity to get money, but that like most business models, it is simply a case of supply and demand. Enough people demand drugs, so that enough people should supply it. Also, this thing with gangs...why is it so important to kill someone who belongs to another gang? I can remember back in the day if you had a beef with someone, you fought them with your fists in the street until someone either quit, someone broke it up, or you both got so tired you couldn't even remember why the fight started. Now, we have to worry about people carrying knives, brass knuckles, a taser or stun gun, pepper spray or at the worst, a gun. Seems that a coward carries a gun, where a true man, like most of these "bangers" claim to be, uses his fists and mere mental intimidation to get his point across. What happened to those days? Did technology increase our distance from one another so bad, that even when we want to kill each other, we can just defer to a piece of metal?

Thoughts?

*Ashley Robin*