Street roots., August 29, 2014, Page 15, Image 15

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Street roots
Aug. 29, 2014
The Shade of Summer
BY GRACE BADICK
C O N TR IB U TIN G C O L U M N IS T
“Hands up. Don’t shoot. Hands up.
Don’t shoot. Hands up. Don't skdot. ”
stood in a crowd of people in a
city park echoing- this line on
Saturday afternoon. Among the
crowd could be
seen old and .
young and
people of all
different
shades of color.
Children with
signs that said,
“Black lives
matter,” and “I
Grace Badick is a
want to grow
Jesuit volunteer with
up in a just
Street Roots
world” sat on
the ground in
the front of the crowd with their
parents. Onlookers and bystanders
looked at the crowd with amusement
and curiosity. Crowded around a
small podium across the street from
the federal courthouse» people
disturbed and angered by the events
in Ferguson, Mo., gathered in
solidarity with the troubled S t Louis
suburb.
I felt compelled to go to the rally
feeling the indignation, confusion
and sadness my counterparts at the ,
gathering also shared. We listened to
impassioned speeches by politicians
and laypeople alike echoing-the
sentiment of “enough.” We’re tired
of gathering because of events like
the shooting of Michael Brown that
I
U
a a
U E
continue to happen, said one
speaker. Another said it is time we
Create a new America continuing
with the vision of Dr. King’s “I have
a Dream” speech. White, black, man,>
woman, transgender persons stood
up and all said the same thing:
Enough is enough.
- And here.,1 was, a white, middle-
class, young woman, who — although
having experienced sexism and
victimization in other ways —has
never been harassed because of the
color of my skin. Here I was
standing in solidarity with a family
who lost a son, a community that is
being brutalized by police, and a
people that has a long history of I
oppression and discrimination. Here
I was, holding a sign: “Dark skin is
not dangerous” and “Peace in our
streets.”
As I Stood there slightly
uncoinfortable, feeling out of place
or at least out of my element, I was
taken back to a summer when my
understanding of solidarity was
completely altered. The facilitator
for the evening’s discussion
deconstructed our perhaps naïve and
academic understanding of the word,
but unfortunately did not help to
reconstruct i t I left the.evening and
that summer thinking I could never
really be in solidarity with anyone. I
am riot black. l am not homeless or
poor. I am not gay. Yet, I feel, it is
important to .stand in solidarity with
these groups. What does that mean
exactly? g|g
To be in solidarity with another
does not mean you have to know
someone’s lived experience exactly.
I am in solidarity with survivors of
sexual assault because I’ve been
there too. But I am also in solidarity
with anyone who has been victimized
or experienced trauma. I can say
that because I get feelings of . ’
smallness, powerlessness, confusion,
anger and disempowerment I do
have other lived experiencesthat
bring me in solidarity with others
who on the surface appear unlike
myself. Yet, I am in solidarity with
those whose lived experience; does
not match mine.
How does that work? It is because -
I choose to be conscious to their
experience, to say, “I see you and
validate who you are and what you
have lived through or are going
through.” I can do this by also saying
I may not really understand exactly
what’s happening, but I am choosing
to be conscious to it and stand, with
you in it.
So, on a hot, August, Saturday
afternoon, I stood in solidarity with a
community I have never been a part
of and never will be, with a family
who grieves the loss of a son, a
people whose historical memory is
wrought with oppression, violence,
and pain. I stood with others who
may or may not completely get what
it is like to be attacked because of
the color of one’s skin. But we stood
together, in solidarity, because
enough is enough, and although
hundreds of miles away from
Ferguson, we wanted that
4. _
Bell
8. Pageant prize
13. Snare
15. Religious figure
16. Dental filling
17. Mideast chief:
Var.
18. Indian leavened
breads
19. Fill with joy
20. Marked by
resistance
22. Tiny openings
23. Plant of the
nettle family
24. Set of principles
26.j __ a high note
Answers on page 6
Sudoku
53. Muse of love
poetry
56. The offering
of’bread and
wine during
Eucharist
59. King or
20
mi
62. Dig
discovery: Var.
63. Percussion
41
42
34
45
44
instrument
64. Rice Krispies
cartoon art
35. First-aid
burden
, pi.
Down
1. Hollywood
Boulevard sight
2. Type of sea snail
3. Monetary unit of
Bangladesh, India,
Pakistan and Nepal
43. Angry
44. Demand
4. Like some
windows
5. A “superfood”
46. Store
48. Stockholm
6. Sustenance
picked up at the gas
native
50. Vernacular
station
7. Outbreak
Mickey Mantle
7
[39
sound
65. Long lock
54
6
4 5
3
9
9
2
1 5
2
48
53
1
3 .4
23
33
4
1 3
7 9 8
17
38
water
67. Beast of
42. e.g. Babe Ruth,
I
32
shut
32. Japanese
40. Turkish leader
41. Brother of Abel
14
13
6
7
3 HI
action
61. Machu
Picchu builder
66. Whirling
music
38. Delhi dress
39. Give me a ____ I
2
1
queen
60. Person of
28. Sealed, closed,
■ 37. Somewhat, in
A globe spins quietly in a room
as a boy prays his mother’s disease goes away.
Time will come here soon enough
he’s said his peace, what else is there to say?
So he opens the sliding glass door
and walks out onto the sunlit terrace
as a yellow monarch flutters by
like a painting hanging somewhere in Paris.
A pitcher of iced tea,rest§jon a. table.
The boy pours himself a glass
and finds no comfort in thè words
that “this too shall pass.”*
He wants his mother back to her former self
her affliction is killing the meaning of summer
so he walks; off into the orchard
amidst the ghost of so many others.
Who walked the earth in previous times
full of hope, full of joy
and commence stirring up the leaves
swirling round the boy.
He repossesses this sanctuary
till evening comes around
presses his forehead against a tree
and lets thè tears fall down.
Then he comes home '
fixes himself a sandwich and some chips
eats all by himself
and stares at the crumbs remaining on his dish...
By Grace Badik
Crossword
Across
1. Absorb, with “up”
|oy Avendor
1
55
59
62
The objective of Sudoku is to fill in all the blank squares with the
65
correct numbers from 1 to 9. Every row, column and square must
include all digits, 1 through 9, in any order.
8. Tie accessory
9. In the placeof
parent
10. Banned apple
spray
11. Part of A.P.R.
12. Affirmatives
14. U.K.’s equivalent
of a president, pi.
21. Trig figure
25. Outer part of
corn
27. Gumbo
vegetable
29. A toy for
jumping around on
30. Authentic and
typical
31. W yleof “ER”
32. Fungal spore
weapon of knights
47. Religous leaders
49. Artful move
51. Fixin’ to
52. Killer whales
sacs
33- Indian bread
34. Pupil’s locale
53. Once, long ago
36. Currency of
55. Toward one side
Bangladesh
39. Memory unit
of a ship
43. Blender sound
45. Important
54. Rhine tributary
57. Ward (off)
58. Blabs