with the past 12 months behind me, i can get back to my self.
let’s start with a quick debriefing.
a year or so ago, after a year marred with grief and loss and change, I accepted a job in corporate america. i was glad for the job- i was able to take a huge pay increase and save every single dime of it; i was able to completely throw myself into something mind numbing so i could avoid continuing to wallow in sadness; and, I learned how to type much better. over all, it was a good decision.
a few months back i realized that i was coming up on the year mark and began to look for work that i believe to be more fulfilling, stimulating, and closer to home. and i did. and now, I am working as a mental health counselor in a elementary school in Englewood; Chicago’s most notoriously depressed and dysfunctional community.
Though like most neighborhoods, on first look, or during a casual drve through theres nothing “terrible” going on. In fact to the unknowing visitor, they might see the new police stations, library, child care center, and community collage as signs of a good thriving area. I was certainly hoping that it was.
Going into it, I rationalized “well North Lawndale was a poor Black area with a lot of violence, this can’t be much different”. And though I still maintain that as far as my job is concerned I am correct, I also realize that there is one difference. My good friend Spook let me in on a piece that I was missing; unlike North Lawndale where there is gentrification moving in slowly, and where there is a short train ride to one of many decent areas, where not 50 years ago the boulevards were lines with flowers and synagogues, Englewood has been a ghetto for 8 generations.
full disclosure: i have not researched this. i am taking Spook’s word on this.
but let’s assume he is right. because i believe he is. perhaps then, the difference between North Lawndale and Englewood is the generations of poverty, of hoplelessness.
Personally, my jury is out and will be for the year. I am intending on spending a lot more time talking and observing before I can make my own sense of this place. I need to know it well enough to see past other people’s lenses.
Incidentally, the Mark Bradford show at the MCA is closing this weekend. His piece, above, reminds me of a map. a blighted beautiful messy map.
