Wall Street

First, I'd like to begin by saying I had an amazing time in Manhattan! With the exception of my sister's wedding, they were the best five days of my life. There wasn't a single moment I regretted going. Thank you to everyone who went, you are all amazing! Thank you to Ross and Morag, and also to Colin for everything he did organisation-wise in Liverpool. New York is an awesome place and I can't wait to go back -- there's so many things left to do!

I've been trying for days to write a decent blog entry. I've given up. What follows is only a brief description of a scene I witnessed on the Friday. Feel free to draw your own meanings and significances from the scene I describe.

After we had got back from Ellis Island, we went down Wall Street. Most, if not all of us, were there. No district of Manhattan is the same as another, and the financial district is no exception to the rule. I really enjoyed walking down there, among all the tightly built skyscrapers. The blustery wind was threatening to seize control of the umbrella Ruth lent me, but we battled on. I love the architecture of the Trump Building in particular:


Not far past the Trump Building, there was a worn out, scruffy, homeless women. I didn't get a good look at her, but she appeared dazed and confused, lost in her thoughts and her bewilderment, disorientated by her fear and drowning in the skyscrapers all around. She stumbled on by us, struggling to walk.

Did anyone else notice this women?

All the major economies of our world look to Wall Street, to the New York Stock Exchange, to the financial district of Manhattan -- they all look because it's the financial district of the developed world. And there's a broken women there. With no where to go. With nothing to eat. With no home to go to. And no bed to sleep in. Wall Street cannot accommodate for this women.

All I can do is make assumptions based upon what I saw. I don't know that women's background, and I don't know the stories behind every self-made man walking down Wall Street. But I saw a homeless women stumbling down Wall Street. That remains the most important most significant thing I saw in New York.

Everything I saw and experienced in New York has a degree of realism. Everything has a characteristic of some sort which made it 'real' to me. Even this:

What I saw reminded me of what Bob Dylan sang:
There's a-mighty many people all millin' all around,
They'll kick you when you're up and knock you when you're down.
It's hard times in the city,
Livin' down in New York town.
This song is also an absolute choon and everyone should have a listen (it's somewhere in the depths of Blackboard).

Yours, wherever you may be,
Daniel C. Wright.

Poverty Is A Poor Excuse For Violence

Poverty in Great Britain is not the same as poverty on a global scale. Relative poverty is not that bad: houses and flats in Peckham, Clapham, and South London, though not luxurious, are habitable. Regeneration is needed in these areas, but only because of the wealth of the surrounding areas. These areas are made to stand out because of the prosperity of the areas around them.

Turning to crime or gang/gun violence is the easy option for the youth who grow up these deprived areas. What is needed is to make the youth of these areas see that there are other options, and that turning to criminal activities (though the easiest option) is not the most sensible choice. Lashing out at the world because "my Dad left my Mum" or because "I never knew my Dad" is simply not acceptable. The conventional viewpoint maintains that a breakdown in the family structure results in the child becoming violent. This is not necessarily so!

July, 1981. Merseyside is gripped by fear as hundreds of black youths riot in Toxteth. For nine days, they burn down shops, attack innocent passers-by and fight with the police. More than 1,000 officers are injured as they battled against petrol bombs and paving stones.

In 1981, Toxteth was the most poverty-ridden area of Liverpool. It still is. It also happens to be 'the Black area' of Liverpool. Although it is still a rundown area, a lot has changed since the riots of 1981. The changes concern education. Educational initiatives have sprung up all over Liverpool, including the regeneration of Liverpool Community College, the creation of Toxteth TV, and more coloured students than ever before attending Liverpool John Moores University. Education is the key. Education is not impossible in poverty-scarred areas. It does not cost anything to read a book.

(It is perhaps necessary to address the notion of the ghetto at this point. There was in 1981, as there still is now, a desire to see these areas turned into fully-blown ghettos, where the gang leaders have the final say on issues of justice, what is right and wrong &c. in an area which is no longer policed by the authorities.)

What is described above is the hard option. After 1981, many of Toxteth's youth turned their back on violence for equality. They turned their back on the easy option of self-pitying drug dealing and gun crime. Toxteth is an example which should be learned from by those in Peckham and Clapham.

Hip hop needs to be looked at objectively. It is true that most rappers are rags-to-riches stories through this black artform, but their childhoods really were in ghettos. The inner city areas of Nottingham, Toxteth in Liverpool, Peckham in London -- these areas are not as bad as Compton, CA., or South Central Los Angeles, CA. We should be thankful Britain is not that bad. Rap has good qualities. It encourages black empowerment. My advice would be to take the energy from hip hop but shed the violence; use the energy constructively to assert oneself academically, and escape those who are less well educated -- escape those who are the violent ones.

Some take hip hop literally. This is illustrated by all the recent shootings in Peckham. The media suspects links to gang culture. They are probably right. But if Booker T. Washington can go from being born a slave to being one of Americas foremost black representatives in an era of strong white assertion, why can not the Peckham gang members go get a proper education, a decent job and a good family life in what is an era of racial equality relative to Booker T. Washington's day?

I'm not saying every Black Briton should adopt Booker T. Washington's conservative views; I am saying every Black Briton should do like he did so they can better assert liberal pro-black viewpoints and make a difference to the wider community (as well as make the community a richer one), rather than just going around killing each other in violence shrouded behind a veil of poverty.

Yours, wherever you may be,
Daniel C. Wright