Oct 31 2008
In four days, history will be made, one way or the other.
In four days, you will decide which way.
Okay, okay: you and I will decide.
Not the pollsters, not the media. You and I.
Come Nov. 5, nothing you or I believe will matter much. What will matter is what we did Nov. 4.
Will Nov. 5 be a day of rejoicing in Homewood? A day of despair? A day of apathy that has persisted right through the making of history?
I would love to launch a meme throughout the blogosphere, and then out into the larger world: On November 4, SHUT UP AND VOTE.
Everybody, everybody....For just one day, stop fussin and fightin with folks from the opposite political camp. SHUT UP AND VOTE.
For just one day, stop making messianic declarations on behalf of your favorite candidate. SHUT UP AND VOTE.
For just one day, stop complaining. SHUT UP AND VOTE.
For just one day, stop letting the undecideds decided because you were too lazy to decide. SHUT UP AND VOTE.
When you do, you might see me out there; I'll be blogging live from polling places in Homewood. You might even get caught on video, so behave yourselves, ok?
Lessons learned from junk mail
John McCain sent me a letter a few days ago that I didn't even open, and not just because it was from him. I probably would not have opened a letter from Barack Obama, either. But Barack Obama didn't send me a letter, he sent me a four-color oversized postcard that I didn't need to open. Interestingly, it didn't say "Vote for Obama." It said, "Vote." And, um, had a big ol' picture of Obama. It also told me where to vote.
Think about that: Somebody in the Obama camp took the time to match addresses with polling places (which may not have actually been much time - it may simply have been a matter of passing data from one computer to another), and sent out oversized postcards to tell people where to vote.
That's smart. This is even smarter: the postcard also told me that it is okay to wear Obama gear to the polls.
Why is that smart? Because of this email that is making the rounds, and that I myself received not long ago:
"Please, please, please advise everyone you know that they absolutely can NOT go to the polls wearing any Obama (or whoever you are voting for) shirts, pins, hats, etc. It is AGAINST THE LAW and will be grounds to have the polling officials to turn you away. This is considered campaigning and no one can campaign within X amount of feet of the polls. They are banking on us being overly excited and not being aware of this long standing law that you can bet will be ENFORCED THIS YEAR!!!!!
They are banking that if you are turned away, you will not go home and change your clothes and return to the polls to vote. Please just don't wear ANY gear of any sorts to the polls! Please share this information with as many people as you can. If you are already aware of this, Please don't take it as insulting your intelligence."
Based on my experience with information forwarded by email, I called the Allegheny County Division of Elections. The poll worker who answered did not want to be named, but he said that in Pennsylvania you can wear whatever you wanted, "long as you go in, cast your vote, and leave right out." In other words, no malingering, dilly-dallying, chilling, or hanging out. Simply hanging around wearing your candidate's gear, "that is considered electioneering," and that will get you in trouble.
But you can wear what you want, he said, and "it's always been that way."
A Commonwealth Court ruling yesterday in Harrisburg seems to leave the whole matter up in the air again, and the safest thing may be not to wear any political gear. But my point is that Obama's people know about that e-mail, and that they're counteracting it - maybe because they know that they are dealing with a lot of folks who haven't voted for a while, maybe ever.
Does that mean that Obama should be our next president? No. It does mean that his people continue to run a very smart campaign.
And for Homewood, so what?
Maybe we who care about Homewood could learn from Obama's campaign. Not so much in terms of specific techniques as in terms of a general approach, which has to do with using the best tools available to operate in the smartest way we can. That means letting go, not only of things that don't work, but also of things that have worked, when they can be replaced by things that work better.
"Things" could refer to actual physical objects or processes, but it can also refer to attitudes, beliefs and behaviors.
In the past, I spoke about envisioning a Homewood that is "beautiful, prosperous and safe." Later I amended that to "beautiful, prosperous, safe and green." Now I want to help Homewood become beautiful, prosperous, safe and green...and really, really smart.
How about you?
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Oct 30 2008
I just spoke with Minister Terry Fluker, who lives in the 7600 block of Race Street, and he shared a story that I would like to share with you.
He had a relative living with him who attracted bad company.
"When I would leave home they would just set up camp on my front porch," he said - "they" being ne'er-do-wells who openly engaged in both using and selling drugs while he was away from the house.
He confronted them about it, and they said that his relative said it was okay.
"I don't want to call the police. I'm a black man like you," he said. "But you can't do that here."
They kept congregating. He called the police. More than once. And he evicted the relative.
They don't congregate there anymore.
A lot of the mess in our neighborhood would go away if more property owners simply said, "You can't do that here. Do it somewhere else if you have to, but you can't do that here."
Even if they have to say it to relatives.
FROM REACTION TO ACTION.
Minister Fluker has gone beyond clearing the riff-raff from his porch. With the help of Operation Better Block, he has scheduled a meeting for residents of Race Street to begin organizing block watches.
"Race Street has always been one of the prime streets in Homewood," he said. Now that the city has done some heavy lifting in terms of cleaning up the physical environment, he said, "We want to look at how we can help the city keep it clean."
The meeting will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday at Baptist Temple Church, at the corner of Race and Sterrett Streets. Besides Operation Better Block, representatives from Mad Dads and the Coalition Against Violence will also be present.
If you live on Race Street, please show up. If you know someone who lives on Race Street, tell them to show up. This may be the best chance we ever have to re-establish the understanding that some things will not be allowed on our street.
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Oct 24 2008
From the "Credit Where Credit Is Due" Dept.
Workers from the City have been busy on my block this week. They not only cleared the vacant City-owned lot at 7215 Race; they boarded up three vacant houses and cleared away the dangerous overgrowth there as well. I made a point of thanking them before I left for work this morning. Now I want to send that up the chain. So, to Mayor Ravenstahl and everybody in-between who helped to make this happen, I'll say the same thing I said to those workers: Thank you for making my block a little less scary.
Calendar Note
Big doings in Homewood tomorrow. Our House Development, Inc., will sponsor a community celebration, "Homewood-Brushton: Sacred Ground, Where Many Roots Connect!"
The event, being held at the Trolley Station Oral History Center in the Greater Pittsburgh Coliseum, will have two parts: an Economic Awareness day from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., and an appreciation benefit from 7 to 10:30 p.m., with a meet and greet from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.
The Economic Awareness portion will provide workshops on a wide range of topics, including starting a new business, repairing your credit, and buying real estate. Also on tap are book signings, poetry, displays of youth entrepreneur projects and more, and one of my new favorite things, John Brewer's "Real Homewood" tour (scheduled for 3 p.m.)
The Appreciation Benefit will simply say "Thank you" to folks who have served the community in different ways: education, business, etc. Honorees will include Alma Illery, Dorsey's Records and the WEMCO Club, with a special dedication to the family of Cora Mae Raiford.
The evening will also include musical selections from AAMI, Brother 2 Brother, and Calvin Stemley (House of Soul), among others.
The economic awareness events will be free; the appreciation benefit will be $10 for adults and free to children.
For more info, contact Dawn R. Webb Turner at 412-243-7083 or dhouse2@verizon.net.
Better yet, just show up!
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Oct 23 2008
If I knew a flautist and a drummer, I might meet with them to record this as an mp3, or ask for a minute at Shadow Lounge to read this. Since I don't, I'll share it this way. Imagine your own musical background...Last night, I heard someone's voice in my head. Someone who has lived more than me, but who has read fewer books. This is what he said...
Me tired now.
Tired of talk, even when it tell the truth.
Tired of the sound of me own voice.
Jus' tired. Ready to shut up.
To learn silence and listen for the simple word.
Not the big word. Not the fancy word.
Not the heavy word that weigh me heart and mind
way down.
No, none of that - just the simple word that say,
"Do this now. This one thing, do now.
Don't wait for perfect plan, don't beg no man
for nothing, don't wait for heaven to give you
something you don't have. Do this now.
Use what you have to do this one thing now."
Me tired of fear, of thinking, "What will they think,
what will they do if me do my one thing now?"
Let them think what they will. Let them do what they can.
Nothing be worse than what me to do meself
if me don't do my one thing now.
Me tired of fear of breaking rules, of breaking roles.
Me no want to break nothing,
but some things must be broke to build.
Me need to build. Me must build
something, anything, big or small
something, anything, pretty and strong
for my neighbor's children's children.
Me need to do my one thing now.
Me tired of talk, tired of talk without do.
Don't think me mad if me be quiet now.
Me not mad, me just need to do,
to do without talk what the silence say do.
Me need to say one more thing before
me shut up: "Good enough's not enough anymore."
c. 2008 Elwin Green, used by permission
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Oct 21 2008
Mayor Luke Ravenstahl did indeed visit Homewood yesterday, and Rich Lord was there to do the story. But the story turned out to be different from the one he had expected to write, because just hours after the mayor walked down Race Street, in the same block where Antwann Jackson was murdered last week, gunfire broke out again.
Here's the story.
Even before the Mayor's visit and the shooting, flyers had appeared in Homewood announcing an "Emergency Town Hall Meeting" being presented by the Brother to Brother Leadership Forum tomorrow evening at the former Reizensten Middle School (now Schenley High) at 6 p.m. The flyer lists several goals for the meeting, the first of which is "to develop a city-wide public health comprehensive approach to reducing violence," as an alternative to the approach of the recently-announced Pittsburgh Initiative to Reduce Crime.
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Oct 20 2008
As I write this, Mayor Luke Ravenstahl is in Homewood; or at least, he was scheduled to be there from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m today, for a press conference on the launch of the "Taking Care of Business Initiative" in Homewood-Brushton (don't know exactly what that initiative is yet). And for a walking tour of the neighborhood, including a couple of blocks of Race Street. Colleague Rich Lord is on the scene, in case something newsworthy comes out
Race Street and Homewood made the front page of the PG today, twice:
"City homicides running high"
"Homewood street lives with fear of gang war"
Today, co-workers are asking me questions like "Is this having an effect on you?" (yes) and "Are you afraid to go out at night?" (no, partly because when we do go out, it is usually not to anywhere in Homewood. There's basically no place in Homewood to go out to, except bars.).
I think some people believe that everyone in Homewood is living in fear, all the time. And it's not quite that way. Yes, there are some knuckleheads with guns out there. But they are mostly targeting each other, or people within their circles of acquaintances. There is an occasional unintended victim, and even one of those is one too many. But the violence of recent weeks is not the kind of truly random violence that might make me afraid to walk any street at any hour of day or night. I may be more careful than I would be living somewhere else, but I don't often feel genuinely afraid.
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Oct 17 2008
OK FOLKS. NO DAYS LEFT....
Just a few hours and minutes, to RSVP for the "My Homewood" Readers' Get-Together. So far, 13 have signed up. Will there be a mad rush to fill the list out to 75? Will the entire affair be downsized to dinner at a diner? Stayyyyyy tuned.
In any case, whether we have 13 or 30 or (gasp) 75, it will be a group of people who care about Homewood and who have something to offer. Be prepared for transformational conversation.
How to get in on the local job boom
One evening last week, I had dinner with Earl Brooks. Earl and I go back to sometime in the 80s or early 90s, when he was helping Breachmender, a Oakland-based nonprofit, to rehab houses in that neighborhood. Now he has his own contracting company and has served in the leadership of the Black Contractors Association.
He knows a thing or two about what is happening in that world. So I sez to him, I sez, "Earl, what's up with all of this construction going on out there? Why ain't there more Brothers on the job sites? What's the dealio?"
Okay, those were not my exact words. But I did ask him to help me understand what is going on when so many in our community remain unemployed in the midst of a years-long multi-billion-dollar construction boom.
He spoke about fighting two battles as the Black owner of a construction company: the external battle and the internal battle.
The external battle is the one waged against majority business owners who don't want to hire minorities. But that's the smaller of the two battles.
"The BAs (business agents) beat the bushes looking for qualified Blacks to hire," he said. "The world that I see is not as closed to qualified Blacks as we are enclosed in an invisible fence that we build for ourselves."
Which leads to the second battle, the one he spoke more about. It's the battle to help people to become employable. Too many potential hires have too many issues.
They have cultural issues: "They may be one of one or two blacks on the job and they can't handle that. Nobody does anything to them, they just can't handle it. I had a guy say to me, 'There's too many white people.' I said, 'Too many what?? Man, you better get your money!'"
And more cultural issues, like The Broom: If a new hire's supervisor hands him a broom at the end of the day and asks him to clean up the work area, the new hire takes it as an insult, a racial dig, et cetera - while a white guy would take the broom and start sweeping because "OSHA will fire any contractor" who does not clean up their work area; it's part of anybody's and everybody's job.
But the biggest single issue, he said, is completely nonracial, and is one that does not simply get people fired. It prevents them - far too many of them - from getting hired: "They can't pass the drug test."
Job training programs can give people the level of knowledge and skill they need to get started in one of the construction trades. Sometimes an employer can look past the lack of a work history.
But they can't look past a failed drug test.
"You're going to lose a lifetime of opportunity because you want to smoke weed," he said. "The last time I looked, smoking weed don't pay nobody except the one selling it."
So maybe the biggest single thing that could happen to boost the unemployment rate in our community would be for us, as a community, to stop smoking weed. To make it uncool and unacceptable. As in, "Not in my house."
Oldtimers will remember the saying, "Lips that touch wine will never touch mine." Not-so-old timers will remember Stevie Wonder singing, "Don't drive drunk." It is possible to create and convey cultural messages that say, "this is uncool and unacceptable," and that produce large-scale changes in behavior. What if girls were taught early on that "Guys who smoke weed don't have what I need?" Or if boys were taught, "You'll never get a honey if a pusher gets your money?"
Not the best examples, but you see my point. Making weed unacceptable could trigger a boost in employment. But nobody is going to come up on our porches and into our houses and snatch the joints out of our children's mouths - or ours. That is entirely up to us.
If Earl Brooks is right, we can have weed, or we can have jobs. We can't have both.
What do you think?
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Oct 16 2008
Dear Mayor Ravenstahl,
I live in the 7200 block of Race Street, which in recent years has been perhaps the most violent block in the City of Pittsburgh. Certainly, we have had more than our share of shootings.
One factor that contributes to the violence, both on my block and in my neighborhood, is the disproportionate number of houses that sit empty here. They reduce the value of surrounding properties, and they endanger nearby residents by providing havens for every sort of criminal activity.
Many of these houses are owned by the City.
On my block, the City took possession of 7215 Race Street on August 28, 2003. After allowing the house to sit vacant for five years, the City has now torn it down. The vacant house has been replaced by a vacant lot, which also depresses property values and endangers residents: less than three months ago, two men, Freeman Mitchell and Keith Grace, were murdered in cold blood by killers who hid themselves in "a wooded area" - a untended vacant lot.
Will 7215 Race Street, which the City still owns, now become "a wooded area?" Now that the City has torn down the house, does the City have a plan for the further use of the vacant lot? According to the current building code, another house cannot be built there. So now what?
I am aware of the program to offer vacant lots to the owners of adjacent properties as side lots. But what if the owner of an adjacent property does not want the vacant lot? Or what if the adjacent property is itself vacant - as 7213 Race Street is?
In March 2007, you announced that the City would begin seizing houses that are frequent crime scenes. But what will the City do with those houses? What is the City doing with the houses that it owns? Is the City placing tenants in them and acting as a responsible landlord? Is the City selling them to residents and boosting the homeownership rate? Is the City selling them to investors?
Is 7215 Race Street the exception, or the rule?
Does the City have any coherent policy on what to do with properties once it takes possession of them?
Rather than merely taking possession of more real estate, I ask you, as Mayor, to give serious thought to developing a plan for the City to divest itself of the hundreds, if not thousands, of parcels of real estate that it now owns - if not all of them, then as many as possible, as quickly as possible.
The current system of selling City-owned property, in which barely existent marketing is overlaid by a bureaucratic sale process that takes a year to complete, nearly guarantees that people who could buy properties and return them to proper use, don't.
I ask you, as Pittsburgh's first mayor to come of age during the Internet era, to consider the possibility of an Internet-enabled auction of City-owned real estate. I ask you to challenge all departments that might be involved with such an effort, from IT to finance to legal, to put together a process that will shift ownership and responsibility for those properties from the City to individual owners - and that will book payment from those buyers - in record time, a process that can provide a model for other cities in similar straits.
In the area of real estate, you inherited a huge mess when you became Mayor, a mess decades in the making. But it need not take decades to fix. Your election expressed the hope of many voters that Pittsburgh could fully enter the 21st Century, shedding policies, practices and habits of thought that would mire us in the past.
In the past, City-owned properties have been a burden both to the City and to residents who live near them. With your leadership, they can be returned to proper use more quickly than most would dare imagine, and become sources of tax revenues again.
Please, lead us forward.
Sincerely,
Elwin Green - resident, homeowner, taxpayer and voter
Oct 15 2008
JUST 2 DAYS LEFT...
...to RSVP for the "My Homewood" Readers' Get-Together.
If you haven't responded to my invitation to meet, greet and eat because you think we've surely reached the 75-person limit, take heart. There's still room to beat the last-minute rush. The best way to do that, as opposed to being part of the last minute rush, is to drop a line now via email to egreen@post-gazette.com. Again, limit 2 per party.
Then mark your calendar:
Date: November 29, 2008
Time: 5 p.m. - 8 p.m.
Place: Montage, 201 N. Braddock Ave.
What, you haven't sent that email yet? Don't dilly-dally, the cutoff for RSVP, 5 p.m., October 17, will be here before you know it.
Another senseless death
When I came to work Monday morning, Antwann Jackson was alive. When I returned home Monday evening, he wasn't.
I have run out of words with which to respond to the ongoing obscenity of homicide in Homewood. I need a new dictionary, I need words that slash and burn, words that seek out evildoers and replace their hearts of stone with hearts of flesh. So many of us say so much, and do so little, and so little of what we do makes a difference.
There must be something, something that will work.
Alongside death, art.
One part of the something that will work would be preventing kids from going down the crime path by giving them more constructive things to do. On that note, the Community Empowerment Association's Hip Hop Academy is accepting applications for its next 20-week program. The Academy is housed in the CEA's Fleury Way location, behind and beneath the old Rite-Aid building.
The program offers 15-to-20 year olds instruction in songwriting, recording and producing - not just by talking about those things, but by putting them to work in a real live recording studio, right there on the premises.
"We want to utilize this to help young people to sharpen their skills, and also as a diversion," said principal engineer Majestic Lane, one of the young men who run the progrlam, "to reduce some of the things going on in the community." Like murder.
If you are, or know, a young person who might be interested in the Academy, call 412 371 0790.
Video of the day
Oct 13 2008
JUST 4 DAYS left...
...to RSVP for the "My Homewood" Readers' Get-Together. You know, dinner, conversation, and a chance to put faces to some of the names you've seen here, in an upscale atmosphere. No punching of noses allowed.
Again, here are the details:
Date: November 29, 2008
Time: 5 p.m. - 8 p.m.
Place: Montage, 201 N. Braddock Ave.
I can hear some of you saying, "Oh, yeah, I've been meaning to RSVP, but I just haven't gotten around to it."
I have a gift for you. Go ahead, take it.
There. You've gotten a round TUIT. Now drop an email to egreen@post-gazette.com and make your reservation (limit 2 per party). While the masses are rushing to and fro, here and there, that Saturday evening, shopping or doing who knows what, you can be one of only 75 to enjoy this meeting of hearts and minds.
The cutoff for RSVP, the real and true deadline, is 5 p.m., October 17.
Redding Up the Hood One More Time
Some 100 people turned out on what turned out to be a gorgeous Saturday, for the latest "Redd Up" in Homewood. As before, volunteers fanned out from Baxter Parklet to surrounding blocks of Frankstown, Brushton, Braddock, etc., and gathered a small mountain of trash and debris.
As before, some of that trash and debris spoke of death. Last year, some of the kids found bullets. This time, the crew collected perhaps a hundred syringes.
Makes me wanna holler. But none of us can just throw up our hands. When we do that, the knuckleheads of all stripes win.
Somebody may say that these "Redd-Ups" are not enough. You've got that right. If you'd like to join the effort to do more, speak up. There's enough work for everybody.
But I digress. What I really wanted to point out is the fellowship that happens around this work. The Homewood Redd-Up is part of a two-day affair that joins communities - Sunday, there was a Squirrel Hill Redd-Up. In each case, the volunteers included residents of neighboring communities, not just of the target area. As Lisa Premo, of Mt. Lebanon, put it, "The whole concept that this program runs on is 'collect and connect.' I'm here for the connect."
What happens when people cross borders to share common tasks?
"We started with no relationship," Ms. Premo said, speaking of the Squirrel Hill and Homewood communities, "then with mistrust, then all the bumps in the relationship" that happen over time, until now, "We have true feelings for each other."
Which helps to explain people who have come together to collect garbage giving each other hugs.
As before, volunteers were well-fed with a spread from Showcase Barbecue, located at 6800 Frankstown Avenue. Owner Drew Allen said that this is the fourth year that he has provided lunch for "Redd Up" workers, free of charge.
Community service can take many forms.
Just for fun
This item from Andrew Druckenbrod's classical music blog, "Classical Musings," made me smile. Confession: sometimes, while riding in my neighborhood, I open my sunroof and crank up the volume on some Beethoven or Mahler. Or when I visit my Squirrel Hill friend, I'll pump out some Quincy Jones. Just every once in a while.
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