Day Five: Why am I here and do I belong here?

I need to rewind, because I've gotten too far ahead of myself; I have talked about my experiences here, and who OSBG is partners with, but I don't think that I've even begun to touch on the complex relationship between OSBG and NY2NO or YCCA. More importantly, while I detailed the structure and layout of the property, I don't think (as I look back over my past entries) I've mentioned the mission of OSBG, or how it is striving to accomplish that.

From what I can understand, OSBG was started by a Carleton Graduate by the name of Nate Turner. He came down to NO shortly after the hurricane to provide aid, but pretty soon decided that he was going to completely uproot himself and devote himself to starting up some way to help the community of the Lower 9th Ward. Around here, Turner appears to be something of a mythical figure. He is the idea man, and he gets the ball rolling at incredible speeds, yet my interactions with him have been fairly brief, and all I truly know of him almost seems legendary. Apparently, he came down here, with nothing except $50 and a used bathtub. And now, he has an entire school, staff, and throngs of people that think what he says and his vision is incredibly valuable.


From what I can gather, OSBG is a million different things at one point in time. First and foremost, it is a school and a grocery store. But with those two things comes a whole lot more that wasn't readily apparent to me. As I've come to understand it, this place is a very important place for young men. At it's best, there are about 15 young men that are enrolled in this school. Without this school, they would most likely not be receiving any sort of education, formal or otherwise. This school is an institution in the community that is meant to provide some measure of stability in a community that may have very little of it. It is a "safe space", a space where people don't have to be worried about being dismissed or disrespected, and can speak their minds and discuss issues pertinent to them. To learn more about OSBG, check out their blog:

http://schoolatblairgrocery.blogspot.com/

This place is also about educating them in social justice, food security, community building, and urban farming-all subjects that are directed towards helping L9 to become stable once again and then self-sustaining. I'll return to this idea of self-sustainability in just a moment. But for now I'd like to talk a little bit about the relationship that OSBG has to NY2NO or YCCA.

Essentially, both of these organizations bring people, primarily from NY and Philly down to New Orleans to provide service. It differs from a number of volunteer organizations that come to mind for several reasons. IN my mind, this difference is in how they approach the service work and learning down here. This trip is not only about 'helping the people of New Orleans', but is about gaining some of the necessary tools to start up or contribute to projects that will help out their own neighborhoods. "Yea, coming down here to help out is certainly a good thing to do, but don't think that work in community building is limited to your time down here," is how someone connected to YCCA pitched it to me.

NY2NO is a program that was created and founded by teens in high school. They are officially recognized as a non-profit organization, and you can check them out a little bit more from their website:

http://www.ny2no.com/

YCCA is similar to NY2NO, but it targets college age students, and it is in some ways managed by the alums of NY2NO. Currently, YCCA and NY2NO are staying and working at OSBG. I didn't realize that these organizations were closely affiliated to OSBG, and some of the initial connection was between Turner and some his former students. You can check out YCCA's site at this link:

http://www.youthcoalition.webs.com/

I think that all three of these organizations, OSBG, NY2NO, and YCCA are all pointed in the right direction. The great thing is that they are all relatively young, and have a lot of room to change and develop. I'm impressed by many aspects of the groups (a combo of high school and college students) that have come down here, but there are certainly aspects of the programs that need a little bit of work.



I have to say, that thus far, I have been made aware of so many social issues that I didn't even realize existed. In some ways, these past five days has given me more food for thought than I had hoped to gain. Being from the east coast, I've heard and made my fair share of jokes regarding the South. But now I'm realizing that there is a greater degree of truth to these jokes. Now, instead of feeling like the south is something to be made fun of, I'm incredibly saddened. For example, I was once sitting with two of my friends, one being from the south and the other from NY. The one from the south read something from an article in the newspaper, and my friend from new york said something to the effect of,"I didn't know southerners could read." Here's the sad part: Louisiana public school system seems to be erratic, and can be incredibly unfair. In some instances, it doesn't take the time necessary to work with students and get them to a point where they will be successful, or achieve a higher degree of education. Instead of holding a student behind to repeat a grade, they just move them along, to graduate as many students as possible. Thus, the overall literacy rates in Louisiana are abysmally low. The following link reports on the literacy in the state of Louisiana.

nces.ed.gov/naal/pdf/state_summaries/Louisiana.pdf

I have always been taught, and have always felt that skin color shouldn't dictate the way that people are treated or mistreated. I'm not sure if I consciously did this or not, but I have always ignored skin color. I am more than happy to hear about people's different walks of life, but I don't seek friends out based on what they look like. This isn't to say that I was in a haze of delirium, thinking that all people were treated equally, but I tried to make it as little of an issue as possible. Again, I am not saying that I was never aware of any issues regarding prejudice or racial issues withing my own school or town, because I witnessed their existence. I'm also not saying that I was trying to get people to be silent, or oppress them. In most instance I just felt that race was second place, if it took a place at all, to being a human being.

Coming down here has forced me to reconsider that position. In one of the workshops run by NY2NO and NYCCA, discussed race, and how it played into the work that was going on down here. Some people felt a bit paralyzed, as if they, as upper-class white people, had not place being down here and trying to help out the residents of L9. One girl, felt torn between her two cultures and was enraged at the inequality of the situation in L9, and discovered some hatred for white people, which was a part of her blood. Some people claimed that the black Americans have "fallen asleep" and debate rose as to whether or not Obama wasn't actually a black man, in that he reflected the experiences of black Americans.

To me, this was making me question what WOULD adequately reflect those experiences. It also made me wonder if I were a little bit deflective or just way to damn earnest for thinking that it was a good thing for me to have come down here. One question, that is continuously addressed, is whether or not this project will have any modicum of success if it is to be continuously dominated by white people that aren't from New Orleans. Is it alright if people that don't share any of these common experiences bust in on the scene and start telling people what they need to do to build the community back up. I hadn't experienced the paralysis of "should I even be here", but much like a mosquito bite, once I was aware of it's presence it began to itch like crazy. Maybe the reason that I've never really paid attention to race is because as a person of mixed decent I don't really strongly identify with a particular group of people. I might love the culture afforded to me by part of my descent, but I've never really felt a part of that ethnic group.

I'm not really sure how to express what I'm feeling; however, I did want to write these things down before they melted into an indecipherable lump of conscious thoughts.