In response to the latest police shooting in Los Angeles, on Skid Row, the Union Rescue Mission and an LAPD officer came onto Fox11 News, to discuss the shooting. They agreed that man shot put himself, and the officers, in a terrible position, and videos show that the LAPD were called to the area, because he was hurting others around him. They are making a point though, that the injustice being lived here, is Skid Row itself. That help is concentrated in that single area, and how the homeless are essentially dumped there, attracting also organized crime, who feeds off of these individuals who are in need of medication, giving them "alternative options". This is a tragedy that faults the entire Los Angeles community, and the fact that we'd collective rather dump these people in a area behind the big building, instead of helping them. LA is full of these contradictions, blocks apart.
When I was in High School, we would join a group that would help a center to pass out resources regularly to communities that were in the most need. There was a "Hotel" near Skid Row that we were working, and we walked down one hallway, that smelled inexplicably aweful, and right in the middle was a toddler playing on the floor. As we got closer to the toddler, the smell got worse. It smelled like rot, like when an animal dies in a wall, or under a floorboard, but times ten, mixed with human feces, puke, rotten food, and other things I couldn't recognize. We talked to the toddlers mom, and she said they hadn't seen their neighbor in a few days, and was ready to call the police because it was "starting to stink". That was the first time I smelled a rotting corpse, and I was shocked by the fact that this child was growing up around it like it was the norm... and in America, of all countries.
These experiences cause you to question A LOT about your life, your community, and your world. It forces you to see that you've been kept in a perverbial well all of your life, and that the world if much larger than your own. At the same time, its hard to not further dehumanize these individuals by tuning them into a learning expereience, and nothing more than a story to tell my future children: about the single time I helped "those people".
The truly reality, is that we are all "those people" and all hold the responsibility to help each other. Some were lucky in life, born in to priviledge or given a chance, and others weren't. Granted, the issue is far more complicated than this simple statement, but the point: WE ALL Hold Responsibility to Help Our Communities. In some way, and even if just our own neighborhoods, or a single neighbor. If you don't like the Darkness, stop crying about it, and do something.... Light a candle, turn on a light.
