Michael L. Farr - Rerock: How to Renovate-Rebuild Urban (Black) Neighborhoods

Rerock

How to Renovate-Rebuild Urban (Black) Neighborhoods

Michael L. Farr

Copyright 2019 Michael L. Farr

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING, INC.

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2019

ISBN 978-1-64544-387-2 (hc)

ISBN 978-1-64544-386-5 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

F irst and foremost, I would like to thank God because I know this is really His work and Im just a vessel for Him. Thanks to my family for never giving up on me even when I was taking the wrong paths in my life. I also want to say thanks to the D.T.S. staff that was over the RDAP Program at Pekin IL. You five people Ms. Hutchings, Ms. Richardson, Mr. Gillum, Ms. Kurka, and Dr. Marks may never know the impact you had on my life and I dont believe I can thank you enough. I also want to thank you, the readers, in advance. It doesnt matter what walk of life youre from if anything in these words of mine can help you be a better you, put them to use and make us all a better group of HUMAN BEINGS.

T he Ghetto, one of rapper Too $horts first songs, stated, Even though the streets are bumpy, lights burned out, dope fiends die with a pipe in their mouth, its still home, and some people will never get out. That was some of the realest rap music I had ever heard then, and it still stands strong today.

Some people will never leave the ghetto, and ghettos will always be a part of America. With that being said, they dont have to be as bad as they are now. This has to be fixed ASAP (as soon as possible). The hood just needs a little love. From the first day I entered this world until now, Ive lived in the hood (low-income black neighborhoods), the ghetto as some would call them, and I love them. I loved every aspect and level of the ghetto and still do. The good and the bad, the yin and yang of the whole thing. I love the people that make up the community that we all call home. The doe boys, kids, gangsters, elderly, the hardworking families, dope fiends, prostitutes, and small business owners. I love the movement, the hustle and bustle of the hood. I even love the smell of it. If it isnt for the piss-smelling alleys, gain ways or stairwells, you could smell barbecue or whatever a little, small black-owned greasy spoon was cookingtheir own specialty dishes. You know what Im talking about, the food of your hood. The little soul food kitchen or fried rice house, we call them chinamen in St. Louis, or how about Mothers Fish. From Jamaican patties in Miami to Mexican food carts in California, every hood has at least one, something, their own scent that makes you feel at home. I bet you can smell it right now.

Then there is the worst scent I have ever smelled in my life. The smell of crack cocaine. To me the smell of crack burning smells worse than death itself. Right now, you are probably saying that he must be crazy, nothing smells worse than death. Allow me to tell you what I mean. Death is one thing, one scent that is awful, but crack is different, its a multitude of bad smells all rolled into one, and the smell of death is just one of the many smells in that ball. Burning crack carries the smell of the child with the overly full, soiled diaper, whose mother doesnt care to clean him/her or the house which is another smell in itself. Crack also has the smell of a crack whores diseased, ridden, unwashed vagina. That smell is hurting my nose right now as Im writing, and its just off memory alone.

It also has the smell of a row of vacant houses that all kinds of animals have taken over. You see the smell of crack is total destruction, and that smell is worse than death alone. The crazy thing about the burning crack smell is it also comes with a visual show on the side. I got to see that showing firsthand. I had a birds-eye view of crack cocaine moving in and destroying the whole structure of our neighborhood. Not just my hood either but hoods, ghettos, or projects all over the entire United States of America. Crack is black Americans worst enemy; it just came in and raped us blind. The thing is, it took much more than our innocence, it took away our heart. We just stopped caring about everything, each other, and ourselves included. Crack also took away our trust. You know its bad when kids cannot have company anymore or you dont know your next-door neighbor. It raped us off unity. I mean we just dont support each other anymore.

Black pride and respect just jumped out the window. I mean, nobody is proud about where they lived or even being black. I personally think respect was hit the hardest of all. When there is no respect for the elderly or full-grown adults, thats just pathetic, but the loss of respect for our own women is devastating. That loss even shows in our music of today. Every woman is a bitch or hoe. Everybody talks as if they really want a girl with no morals. Their girls got a girlfriend, or their own friend has to have sex with her. Come on now, love and marriage do still exist. Nobody really wants someones whore as a homemaker. All of that is a direct effect of crack cocaine. If it wasnt crack in your hood, it is another hard drug, like heroin or PCP, that do the same thing. The good thing is it didnt kill us, it just hit us really damn hard, dazed us. Knocked us down even. We just have to pick ourselves up and renovate and rebuild our neighborhoods and ourselves. I know, I know that sounds impossible, but its not. What it takes to do this though is a hard truth, a realization, a little love and understanding for your blackness.

You see one of the hardest things to do on this great planet of ours is to admit the truth to yourself. One hard truth is that racism is never going away. It may not be legal or as blatant as in the days of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., it may be hidden a lot better, but it is never going away. With that truth, comes the realization that they really dont care about us. The they being the majority of people in other races and then some of our own. The government couldnt care less about us. They only say something when crime goes public, meaning nationwide. For example, Chicago. Gang killings and drugs have been going on there for decades. Nothing was ever said or done about the crimes until the nation saw it on television, and still nothing was really fixed. I also realized that I love my people no matter what city or state they are from, and that whatever people see, hear, think, or do about blacks anywhere in the United States directly affects me. I then came to my most important realization of all. Nobody can fix us but us. Now that I have a clearer understanding about the situation, I figured out a way to fix the problem. Its a long-term fix, too, not just a Band-Aid to cover it up.

I have to get you (my people) to understand that theres a few hard truths we have to accept to rebuild our neighborhoods. First, poor black people will always exist in America, so hoods or ghettos are not going anywhere any time in the near future. Its just how America is built. Not everybody can be rich or even just well off. Thats just wishful thinking. There is and always will be big businesses, and of the walls will be workers. Those workers will rank from high level to low level, and they are paid accordingly. These simple things create classes of people, and a lower class will always exist. Oh, by the way, asking McDonalds to pay fifteen dollars per hour is not an answer.

Look at it like this. Lets use the big O as an example. Oprah Winfrey is a black female billionaire that loves her blackness. I mean she is a Political independent that voted for Democrat, Barack Obama, because he was a black man running for president. I want you to ask yourself a question. How many jobs does Ms. Winfrey create just by being her, and how many of those jobs are lower class? Do you think that the man/woman who runs the machine that prints her magazine makes enough money to not struggle? How about the people who clean for her? That job alone includes offices, movie and television sets, houses, cars, whatever needs to be cleaned. How about the water person, you know who, the person that drops off the blue jugs with the clean, good-tasting water? Would you say he is rich? How about just well off? I wouldnt. Its not her fault though; those are their jobs, and the pay is whatever it is. The truth is that those things will always need to be done. There are millions of jobs like that, and they will always be there.