February Article / 2021 - Turning The Page

 Buffalo Latino Village

TURNING THE PAGE

Valentine’s day is coming! Make it an everyday event and collectively “Love Thy Neighbor as thy self”. Along with getting a new president, give your community a new Manifest Destiny. Originally coined by journalist John O’Sullivan in 1845 to mean “expansion of colonial borders”, the term eventually came to mean “everything on this side of the hemisphere would be Anglo, protestant, and English speaking”. The ending days of the Trump era revealed that, to many, such mind set is not only alive and well but expanding.

Together with the 1823 Monroe Doctrine warning war with anyone attempting to encroach on, or interfere with the national agenda, look at your community. Is not the process of disinvestment and reinvestment displacing low and middle-income families and small businesses? If you don’t harmoniously unite and protect your borders the process of community gentrification will eventually feel like genocide. And make no mistake it is a growing process in the making. Face it! If you don’t collectively stand and fight for what little you have here and now, where will you go? If you don’t love your neighbor, who will love you?

There will be big regrets in having bought into the “Me, Me” mindset that says; “As long as it’s not happening me - it’s none of my business”. So, as another one bites the dust; let Mrs. Jones get evicted, let Mr. Chen lose his business, let Pedro get fired, let Abdul get falsely arrested, let our children – the next generation – suffer the consequences. How many “let’s” will it take to realize that if it’s happening to anyone it will eventually get to you?

Yes! While what’s happening on the global and national level is an important indicator of what’s coming our way, now is not the time for feelings of hopeless helplessness. There’s plenty that needs to, and can, be done within the limits of our own community borders. And it’s not so hard. With a simple informative community publication, healthy block associations can rise to make strong community boards able to identify and address common issues that may often require help from elected officials. Allow yourself to imagine how, under a simple but solid game plan, elected officials would be more inclined to listen and be sensitized into action. For example, instead of protests that can often be weathered or lead to violence – why not have an egg moment: where injustice arises let the collective fling eggs or water balloons at the culprits. While many will call it dangerous, how harmlessly funny, exciting and empowering it can be. It might be one of many creative ways to steer focus away from anger and hate. It might change the wording from civil “disobedience” to civil “resistance”. Extra! Extra! Read all about it! While marshals sought to serve an unfair eviction, or the police go ballistic during an arrest, or local officials turn a deaf ear – some neighbors hold a sit in while others throw eggs and the rest go viral with their cell phones. For sure media would have a field day picnic.

Point! America is burning and in need of drastic measures. So, with valentine’s day coming, let us be the fire extinguishers one resident, one community at a time.

Jose M Yrizarry