Color Brownsville Blue

A month has passed since I've posted to the blog, and I wish what I was writing about tonight wasn't so full of sadness.

Over the last few days, my mind and heart have been filled with grief for this Brooklyn community. It is the same community my relatives of yester-year settled in to grab hold of that intangible thing called the "American Dream."

My mother, grandparents and immigrant great-grandmother lived in a two family brick house on Blake Avenue. My grandfather and his brother, Uncle Jack owned a fabric store together on Knickerbocker Avenue in Bushwick. From the age of 19 until she was 71 (when the UFT's records caught up with her age and forced her into retirement), my grandma Rose Baxter was an elementary school teacher in Brooklyn. She worked in Brownsville, East New York and Bushwick.

For over a quarter of a century, my grandmother taught at PS 149 on Sutter Avenue. That school is also known as the Danny Kaye School, named for one of the 1950s most beloved entertainers in the world. An actor/comedian, Danny Kaye was the original UNICEF celebrity representative and Goodwill Ambassador for the United States from 1954 until his death in 1987.

I know who Danny Kaye was because my family was proud of his success. Grandma Rose was his fifth grade teacher.

I believe deeply that children

are more powerful than oil,

more beautiful than rivers,

more precious than any other

natural resource a country can have.

- Danny Kaye

The poor and working class neighborhood public schools, teachers and sense of community that shaped my mother's humanity, Danny Kaye's, and thousands of others who grew up in School District 23 have not been forgotten by all.

Zurana Horton's love for, and protection of children spoke volumes about her humanity.

But back in my mother's and grandmother's day, Brownsville was safer. It was comprised of real neighbors who would meet and greet one another on Pitkin Avenue; the thriving shopping strip of local mom and pop shops.

There may still be a handful of locally owned retail stores along this avenue, but from what I saw today, they are few and far between. The local retailers who lived in Brownsville while growing their businesses there had a solid reason to be anchored to the community. Their livelihoods were dependant upon serving and knowing their neighbors as well as the children of Brownsville by name, but that kind of anchoring to this community is long gone now. Today's merchants have separated themselves from the people of Brownsville by installing thick bullet-proof glass. It seems that countless franchises created by mega corporations have all taken over.

What has also taken over is a proliferation of guns and gangs. Poverty. Despair. And lack of faith or belief in "the Dream."

A young mother has died. Another young mother was also shot in the arm. And an 11 year old, sixth grader has a bullet grazed cheek. The public school on the block the shooting occurred is rated "F."

I hope and pray for a healing, and an end to the terrible violence. Khem, Jamillah and I represent The MANY by standing with our sisters and brothers in Brownsville, willing to lend an extra pair of hands, our strength, contacts, resources and love in any way that helps to find solutions.

Brownsville is blue.