Above and Below
Growing up, I always thought of my city as a kind of delightful mish-mash of religious, ethnic, even socio-economic groups. This is mainly due to my attending public school, which, because of integrative busing at the elementary level, and the presence of 'magnet' schools (competitive schools which teens from all over the city could attend) at the secondary level, allowed me the privilege of asking a lot of potentially obnoxious questions (i.e., 'What's that scarf on your head?') at an age when other people are more inclined to answer one's questions than get offended by curiosity.
Living in Pittsburgh was a very different affair; my university was/is a mainly white campus, and although minority groups were active and there was no outright hostility, the 'separate lunch table' self-segregation definitely operated on the social scene. After four years there, London's diversity felt invigorating. I found myself living in a neighborhood with large Middle Eastern and Polish populations, and a short Tube ride away from any number of excellent exhibitions, retrospectives of the Great Masters alongside intelligent and informed surveys of the art and history of so-called developing countries. (This is not to say the selection process cannot itself be problematic -- take the Tate Modern's retrospective this past summer of Frida Kahlo, for example, whose renown over other Mexican artists stems as much from her sensational life and recent titillating biopic, as for her deft and unique mixture of folkloric and 'classical' techniques. Yet for those interested in alternative traditions within art, such a large and well-known space as the Tate provides a starting point, a place for awareness to begin.)
After three months back in my hometown, I see clearly that I'd mistaken my small, friendly 'melting pot' years at public school for the attitude of a city at large. These days I work in a predominantly Latino neighborhood at the edge of North Philadelphia, an area I knew only by name in childhood, and not for anything particularly desirable. And while I may stick to the main thoroughfares walking to the subway every night, I feel as much -- if not more -- of a sense of community as I do in my own neighborhood, a decidedly well-off area in the northwest part of the city. On the blocks where I self-consciously walk alone, families wander in and out of each other's houses, say hello to everyone who walks by, and on each block gather for conversation on a chosen stoop any time the winter temperatures rise a few degrees. Just before the holidays, I left the building where I work only to see two young teens egging on their adolescent pit bulls in a fight, letting the dogs grab hold of each other and then wrenching them apart, laughing at the animals' frenzied reaction. Shaken, I turned the corner -- only to see two elderly women, next door neighbors, helping each other to put up their Christmas lights.
By sharing this contrast I don't intend to imply anything other than my own blindness to a whole area of the city that I apparently 'knew by heart'. After all, why would people who don't live in this neighborhood bother to come here? They'll only find a handful of restaurants, many of which charge extortionist prices for a sit-down meal; check-cashing joints; auto repair shops; and vacant lots and condemned buildings. Not until the young and educated (known as 'hipsters' these days, not nearly as ironically as they'd like to imagine) exhaust their gentrification of the neighborhood Fishtown, farther south, will Philadelphia take a second look at this neighborhood. Until then, it doesn't really exist except on the news.
These realizations and frustrations are typical -- anyone coming from a relatively privileged background upon their initiation into social work must have them at one point or another. But with the federal holiday in honor of Dr. King next Monday, and Black History Month and Presidents' Day in February, I can't stop thinking about the boundaries that are in place -- the invisible lines we don't cross, which make the self-assigned segregation of a lunchroom seem both paltry and a sad indication of a pattern. And the city won't let me stop thinking about it. On Saturday I attended a function at the Union League, a 'patriotic social society' formed in 1862 that occupies an elegant brick and brownstone building on Broad Street near City Hall. Upon entry, I was held in the foyer by a security guard, a middle-aged Nigerian immigrant who insisted that I couldn't go further due to my 'improper attire' -- a pair of jeans. As my invitation had failed to indicate a dress code, and as my knowledge of high-society Philadelphia is in fact quite limited, I had no idea that my 'dressy jeans' would cause offense to elderly gentlemen gathered for brandy and cigars. It took the 'okay' of three managers before the guard felt sure his position wouldn't be jeopardized by making an exception, which leads me to believed that he's seen others fired for much less. Once upstairs in the Grand Ballroom, I found myself reading the Gettysburg Address, carved into one of the high oak walls, while a fellow guest gossipped that in fact women, blacks and Jews had not been allowed in the Union League until the 1980s. And this in a society 'founded to support the policies of President Lincoln'.
The next day, in a train station two blocks away from that stately instituion, I found myself gazing blankly at the neon advertisements for a new biography of Lincolnsoon to be aired on the History Channel. 'He freed four million people. But he could never free himself', read one of the slogans. Pop psychology strikes again, shrinking a monumental historical event down to one man's neuroses. Above or below the streets of Philly, our history, our awareness is always being shaped around a delicate periphery. It's easier to skirt the edges of a comfort zone than to ever truly leave it. I am amazed to find this city cold to me, fossilized, a sharp veneer surface draped artfully over so many assumptions. I have been discouraged following de Maistre's footsteps. It's time for this chapter of 'home travel' to end.
Living in Pittsburgh was a very different affair; my university was/is a mainly white campus, and although minority groups were active and there was no outright hostility, the 'separate lunch table' self-segregation definitely operated on the social scene. After four years there, London's diversity felt invigorating. I found myself living in a neighborhood with large Middle Eastern and Polish populations, and a short Tube ride away from any number of excellent exhibitions, retrospectives of the Great Masters alongside intelligent and informed surveys of the art and history of so-called developing countries. (This is not to say the selection process cannot itself be problematic -- take the Tate Modern's retrospective this past summer of Frida Kahlo, for example, whose renown over other Mexican artists stems as much from her sensational life and recent titillating biopic, as for her deft and unique mixture of folkloric and 'classical' techniques. Yet for those interested in alternative traditions within art, such a large and well-known space as the Tate provides a starting point, a place for awareness to begin.)
After three months back in my hometown, I see clearly that I'd mistaken my small, friendly 'melting pot' years at public school for the attitude of a city at large. These days I work in a predominantly Latino neighborhood at the edge of North Philadelphia, an area I knew only by name in childhood, and not for anything particularly desirable. And while I may stick to the main thoroughfares walking to the subway every night, I feel as much -- if not more -- of a sense of community as I do in my own neighborhood, a decidedly well-off area in the northwest part of the city. On the blocks where I self-consciously walk alone, families wander in and out of each other's houses, say hello to everyone who walks by, and on each block gather for conversation on a chosen stoop any time the winter temperatures rise a few degrees. Just before the holidays, I left the building where I work only to see two young teens egging on their adolescent pit bulls in a fight, letting the dogs grab hold of each other and then wrenching them apart, laughing at the animals' frenzied reaction. Shaken, I turned the corner -- only to see two elderly women, next door neighbors, helping each other to put up their Christmas lights.
By sharing this contrast I don't intend to imply anything other than my own blindness to a whole area of the city that I apparently 'knew by heart'. After all, why would people who don't live in this neighborhood bother to come here? They'll only find a handful of restaurants, many of which charge extortionist prices for a sit-down meal; check-cashing joints; auto repair shops; and vacant lots and condemned buildings. Not until the young and educated (known as 'hipsters' these days, not nearly as ironically as they'd like to imagine) exhaust their gentrification of the neighborhood Fishtown, farther south, will Philadelphia take a second look at this neighborhood. Until then, it doesn't really exist except on the news.
These realizations and frustrations are typical -- anyone coming from a relatively privileged background upon their initiation into social work must have them at one point or another. But with the federal holiday in honor of Dr. King next Monday, and Black History Month and Presidents' Day in February, I can't stop thinking about the boundaries that are in place -- the invisible lines we don't cross, which make the self-assigned segregation of a lunchroom seem both paltry and a sad indication of a pattern. And the city won't let me stop thinking about it. On Saturday I attended a function at the Union League, a 'patriotic social society' formed in 1862 that occupies an elegant brick and brownstone building on Broad Street near City Hall. Upon entry, I was held in the foyer by a security guard, a middle-aged Nigerian immigrant who insisted that I couldn't go further due to my 'improper attire' -- a pair of jeans. As my invitation had failed to indicate a dress code, and as my knowledge of high-society Philadelphia is in fact quite limited, I had no idea that my 'dressy jeans' would cause offense to elderly gentlemen gathered for brandy and cigars. It took the 'okay' of three managers before the guard felt sure his position wouldn't be jeopardized by making an exception, which leads me to believed that he's seen others fired for much less. Once upstairs in the Grand Ballroom, I found myself reading the Gettysburg Address, carved into one of the high oak walls, while a fellow guest gossipped that in fact women, blacks and Jews had not been allowed in the Union League until the 1980s. And this in a society 'founded to support the policies of President Lincoln'.
The next day, in a train station two blocks away from that stately instituion, I found myself gazing blankly at the neon advertisements for a new biography of Lincolnsoon to be aired on the History Channel. 'He freed four million people. But he could never free himself', read one of the slogans. Pop psychology strikes again, shrinking a monumental historical event down to one man's neuroses. Above or below the streets of Philly, our history, our awareness is always being shaped around a delicate periphery. It's easier to skirt the edges of a comfort zone than to ever truly leave it. I am amazed to find this city cold to me, fossilized, a sharp veneer surface draped artfully over so many assumptions. I have been discouraged following de Maistre's footsteps. It's time for this chapter of 'home travel' to end.
posted by HB at 9:31 AM
1 Comments:
Darling. Darling, darling, darling.
DARLING!
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