Speak Up!

One of the things I never imagined when I came to Woonsocket and bought my beloved house was the bias my colleagues had against this City and in particular this neighborhood. They were classist criticizing ethnic diversity and poverty, the very things that comforted and fascinated me.

The original owner of my house had been the landlord to all of these tenements in the neighborhood. When people talk they say "you're gunna move right? I say NO WAY, I LOVE my neighborhood, at the intersection of vitality and courage.

Even my sister stuck her nose up and said "You live amongst tenements!" "That's right", I said. And I am never lonely when I wake in the night. I am comforted by urban! My parents affluent Greenwich Connecticut friends came and said "Nice starter house!" I nearly slugged them.

I must've inherited my Grandparents genes. They lived on Brighton Beach for 50 years. Grandma loved urban and talked to everyone on the boardwalk and when when we rode on the subway into the city. All children were her children all people were friends no matter what the age race or language they spoke. My grandfather had a fans and motors tiny store front on Centre Street off Canal St in lower Manhattan. He'd let the alcoholic homeless men come in to use the bathroom and occasionally he'd take them out for breakfast. "They need a good meal" he'd say. He wore a diamond Shriners pin on his lapel and there was a mezzuza on their apartment door.

As a child I was abused at the hands of my mother in the affluent suburbs. I ran as fast as I could to get away starting at age 15. First I stayed with friends from school then I moved to Brooklyn and then to Chinatown NYC. I got a job and my own apartment on Mott Street. I was still enrolled in high school. My teachers were supportive of my move and gave me credit to graduate early. They knew. They had met my mother. One teacher said "I met a lot of mothers at Mam'k High but none were as scary as YOUR MOTHER". I thanked her for saving me decades of psychotherapy. She was my WITNESS as Swiss Psychotherapist Alice Miller would say.

Now I see the ethnic and class biases are taking place everywhere. Flint Michigan, Detroit Michigan, New Orleans Louisiana.

When I talk to city hall I say "It doesn't have to be SLUMS." It's just poor people not BAD people. I think they agree deep down and they have learned something from ME as I have learned a lot from them. We have attracted some responsible landlords to the neighborhood and the police have cracked down on the major drug dealers who were stationed here. Now the children play ball in the parking lot and ride their scooters and bicycles around. Now mothers take turns watching each others kids.

It takes a village!

And we must speak up for everyone.