24th and Potrero

24th and Treat

Street Art - 24th Street

24th and Florida

There are several things I know to be true when it comes to my emotional life:

1. I am over-the-top sensitive. Not in the way that people hurt my feelings easily, but more in the way I pick up and am easily impacted by the vibe in a room.

2. Not everyone feels the way that I feel, and not everyone gets it. Actually, most people don’t.

and

3. It is my responsibility to manage my sensitivity and my reaction to it.

The other night I was having dinner with a good friend who is as sensitive, if not more so, than I am. We ate Indian food and talked and laughed. It helps to have someone who experiences the same type of emotional overload. It’s like some weird sisterhood – oh yes, the ties that bind.

Anyway, most recently, I’ve been really impacted by the shootings in my neighborhood and the number of kids that have been killed. The pictures above are of makeshift altars erected on 24th Street to honor lives lost in the last two weeks due to shootings. There are cops on almost every street corner these days and tensions are running high. My reaction is not  rooted in fear or anger, it’s mostly sadness. The kind of sadness you would feel if you actually knew the people who died, which I didn’t. The kind that weighs down on you and is hard to shake.

I should say here that I do not live in a desolate, crime-ridden neighborhood. This week will mark four years I’ve lived here, the most at home I’ve ever felt. In my neighborhood people throw block parties in the streets to get to know their neighbors. They decorate trees with paper flowers for no reason in particular. They paint brightly colored murals to tells stories of the Latino immigrant experience. There are hipsters, activists, families, poor people and rich people all living right next to each other. It is also true that in my neighborhood kids shoot each other in the name of gang affiliation and defending turf.

I imagine somewhere in the Mission District there are other people who are as upset by the violence as I am, but I can’t seem to find any of them. The people I talk to are:

1. Scared for their own safety – which is largely unrealistic because this type of gang violence, rooted in protecting territory, is personal crime. They are killing other gang members.

2. Numb to the violence – which is hard for me to understand. No matter how many times you see or hear about it, kids are still shooting each other.

3. Misinformed and think that gang activity can be curbed simply be increasing police enforcement- which blows my mind. Yes, gang activity is a big problem, but more so it is a symptom of social and economic inequity. You can’t curb gang activity without addressing the root issues.

In the past four years I’ve seen waves of violence hit over and over again – sometimes in front of my own building. In that time I’ve been part of neighborhood associations that have turned into polarazing neighborhood watch groups – the watchers and the watchees (my involvement didn’t last long). I’ve also heard a number of friends and neighbors speak of how much they love the Mission and then they move on to “nicer” neighborhoods where “people actually care about their neighborhood.”

Obviously, I can’t control what others think or feel or do, but I can (per no. 3 in the first list above) own my feelings and take appropriate steps to address them. And so I’ve decided to seek out opportunities to support long term solutions to the violence in my hood – solutions that do not displace families and further polarization, but instead promote integration and level the playing field by providing alternatives to gang affiliation and crime – ie youth programs, economic development initiatives etc. I’m not sure what all of this will look like when it comes together, but I’m in research mode now. There’s a lot of positive amidst the negative, just sometimes it needs to be sought out.