Jamaica in Queens
I went to Jamaica, Queens yesterday to return my cable boxes (thus ending my cable relationship with Time Warner) and my mom had to drive locally on the way back... We drove through Jamaica Avenue, where gentrification was at its worst and had squashed out so many of the mom & pop shops that the area used to be known for.
And it made me so mad. You see these kids ambling about with their pants hung low and and the girls with fake nails and glitter everywhere. It's was a school day. And it wasn't even lunch hour. They were supposed to be in school. But they were hanging around in the corner of a street together, laughing and smoking something together and I just got so mad. Not at the kids, but at where they were. All they see is that. There are posters of shit rappers on the stores, there are ads filled with voluptuous ladies wearing the latest shit called clothes and makeup, and there are three McDonalds, two Burger Kings, and two Wendys within a five-block radius.
Where is the library? Where are the schools? Where is anything that values learning?
Instead, the only building that even remotely alludes to something intelligent is the supreme court building smack dab in the middle of the city. To these kids, it's a reminder that Big Brother is out there; it's a warning not to fuck up when you're doing shit, or you'll end up in there -- where your dad is, maybe, or where your mother or your brother or your uncle or your best friend is.
And I just. I can't. I hate this. I hate everything. I want to wipe out the street and start fresh. Build a park. Build better schools. Put in a fucking library, for once.
But I can't do that. Because that is completely out of my control.
And it made me so mad. You see these kids ambling about with their pants hung low and and the girls with fake nails and glitter everywhere. It's was a school day. And it wasn't even lunch hour. They were supposed to be in school. But they were hanging around in the corner of a street together, laughing and smoking something together and I just got so mad. Not at the kids, but at where they were. All they see is that. There are posters of shit rappers on the stores, there are ads filled with voluptuous ladies wearing the latest shit called clothes and makeup, and there are three McDonalds, two Burger Kings, and two Wendys within a five-block radius.
Where is the library? Where are the schools? Where is anything that values learning?
Instead, the only building that even remotely alludes to something intelligent is the supreme court building smack dab in the middle of the city. To these kids, it's a reminder that Big Brother is out there; it's a warning not to fuck up when you're doing shit, or you'll end up in there -- where your dad is, maybe, or where your mother or your brother or your uncle or your best friend is.
And I just. I can't. I hate this. I hate everything. I want to wipe out the street and start fresh. Build a park. Build better schools. Put in a fucking library, for once.
But I can't do that. Because that is completely out of my control.