Community

This column has expressed community empowerment from a dark perspective, the maladies and shortcomings within politics, housing, law enforcement, the pandemic and more. Though important for stirring up a need for change, it’s dangerous to leave it at that. By itself, this lens  can one harbor anger, hate, blame, division, and desires for justified retribution. Worse! It keeps hidden feelings of helpless hopelessness and despair alive. It does little for the love, hope, pride, and potential individual residents hold inside, in wait, to be revived and sprang into action. But how?   First, some thoughtful words to consider: confidence comes with the increased use of available people skills, knowledge, and belief that they can make a difference; being inclusive promotes equal opportunity and good relations between groups to challenge present contradictions; organizing brings people and groups to common issues and concerns in an open, democratic, and accountable way; cooperative attitudes build positive relationships among groups and promote partnering links with local and national bodies; influential people encourage and equip residents to partake in decisions affecting local services and activities. Sounds good but not enough! Community empowerment is a product able to put different values within community restoration and/or development into action. But consider what time and resources community planning boards tend to approve. Are current resident needs and concerns reflected? Look around and try turning a vacant lot into a community garden, homestead abandoned buildings for homeless residents or space for cultural art exhibits and performances, make your own repairs and try deducting it from the rent to see what’s really happening and remember the saying “if you don’t use it – you lose it!” Much of what seems neglected and underutilized is already part of visions years in the making behind closed doors with investors expecting, and defending, profitable returns; regardless of rights and laws NOT GONE but WAITING to be RESURRECTED and DEPLOYED! So, wonder to dream rather than surrendering! Many assumptions make both the concept and application of community empowerment’ problematic, confusing, potentially meaningless and unnecessarily complicated. But remember the saying “KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID!” If unity is the missing key, then by any means available (e.g., street block parties, games and tournaments like stickball, skelly, crack-top, double Dutch and more … let’s begin a new “Poor Peoples Campaign” full of fun and opportunities for people to simply come together and talk; the exchange of information and thoughts provide ammunition to gather, opinions to consider, and common grounds build and act upon. Come on! Get creative! Let the sounds of congas from rooftops fill the air. Let the sound of shaking dominoes fill the streets outside our local grocery stores. Let the corners become stages for hip hop rappers and spoken word performers to spread the message: With growing block-by-block associations, we the people can stand together to take over and resolve so much presently left undone. So, for the next few articles let’s explore what underestimated and/or underutilized opportunities can be RESURRECTED and DEPLOYED. To share your thoughts and GET IT ON, feel free to click the comment link below.           Note: Read more of Yrizarry’s work; go to 26-spoken.blogspot.com, where you can interactively dialog comments with the columnist. Read More From This Writer All Post Art Books & Poems Business Community Education Entertainment español Food & Culture Health Interviews Military & Veterans Peace People Politics BETTER LATE THEN NEVER: WHY NATIONAL WOMEN’S MONTH! April 17, 2022/No Comments BETTER LATE THEN NEVER: WHY NATIONAL WOMEN’S MONTH! Women! Ha! What are they good for? Ha! ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING! For starters, Read More “LOVE IS A BATTLEFIELD” February 17, 2022/No Comments “LOVE IS A BATTLEFIELD” Wow! February! Lovey dove time for couples to share flowers, chocolates, dinner, special gifts, and of Read More FOR WHAT’S ANOTHER NEW YEAR January 17, 2022/No Comments FOR WHAT’S ANOTHER NEW YEAR The New Year is a worldwide celebration mainly full of parties, costumes, drinking and resolutions Read More Load More End of Content.

CRIME, PUNISHMENT, AND JUST-U.S. (Part 2 of 2) “Nobody has a more sacred obligation to obey the law than those who make the law (Sophocles).” Yet, like children building sand-towers with constancy and then destroying them with laughter … some delight in laying down laws and even more in breaking them. Such conditions have come to thwart the individual moral compass; crossing all races, cultures, ages, and economic classes living in urban, suburban and rural places, Crime Has No Limits! Whether it be white collar (for entrepreneurial economic gain and fame) or blue collar (often from facing long term inescapable economic deprivation), whether physically violent or property related, crime has become good business for merchants, insurance companies and other institutions. “But it is when your spirit goes wandering upon the wind, that you, alone and unguarded, commit a wrong unto others and yourself” while chasing CAD (the automated Capitalist American Dream) when finger pointing public officials while negating personal accountability to both community needs, and efforts made by local supportive services. Were our communities like the 1630 Massachusetts Bay Company, requiring a public loyalty pledge from its members? (Oath of a Free Man *). Were our community members like the Young Lords, the Black Panthers, the Guardian Angels, and the picketing Catholic Marxist Priests of the 60’s able to break from racial, economic, and political divides to put local issues in local hands regardless of police and local official intent and reaction. Things simply got done! In addition to protests, abandoned buildings were taken and renovated, official offices were stormed and held hostage, food and medical supplies were distributed, educational after school initiatives were made available and crime was given a NIMBY (Not in My Back Yard) NOTICE as community self-affirmation steadily flourished.   While organizing to minimize potential clashes, arrests and rioting, such actions eventually got a wide range of official address. Even the local police temporarily initiated CPOP (officers walking the beat) and PAL (police athletic league) projects in N.Y.C. to facilitate community rapport on a first name basis. Unfortunately, Reagan’s poorly planned and executed “War on Drugs” project of the 1980’s changed priorities and a dramatic growth in crime ensued. Fellow citizens, history affirms resident anger without hate yields actions with positive results. Oppressors can muffle the drum and loosen the strings of the lyre to distort your community cry for help, but who shall command God’s skylark not to sing the truth? To make ends meet, especially among the young middle and lower economic strata, crime has become fundamental to the individual “get the most for the least effort” notion of the American dream. And unfortunately, until community cries out NIMBY, racial economic disparity in punishment for alleged crimes will continue for Just-U.S. to continually accept. So, cry NIMBY for all and not JUST-U.S. Note: Read more of Joe Yrizarry’s work, go to 2bspoken.blogspot.com, where you can interactively dialog comments with the columnist.  (*) The “Oath of a Freeman” was a loyalty pledge required of all new members of the Massachusetts Bay Company in the 1630s. A supposed original printing of the document surfaced in 1985 and was touted as the oldest surviving print in the United States, but it was later revealed to be the work of forger Mark Hofmann. Read More From This Writer All Post Food Government Health Interviews Lower West Side Business & Economic Development Peace People CRIME, PUNISHMENT, AND JUST-U.S. (Part 2 of 2) August 16, 2021/No Comments POST TITLE (CAPITAL) Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus Read More CRIME, PUNISHMENT, AND JUST-U.S. (Part 1 of 2) July 16, 2021/No Comments CRIME, PUNISHMENT, AND JUST-U.S. (Part 1 of 2) How ironic! While preparing to celebrate Independence Day, America owns the world’s Read More HOUSING TERMITES June 16, 2021/No Comments HOUSING TERMITES The apple does not fall far from the tree, just as  Feudalism had kings, nobles, vassals, and lords, Read More Load More End of Content.