So I found myself talking about racism in the show "Intervention" tonight. I forget how it came up but I wasn't drunk because my son and his friend were with me. I was talking to a person of color (I forget exactly who) but I was saying how they only have white people on "Intervention." One of my co-workers (who is white) overheard and she jumped in sort of taking offense. Soon as she jumped in I thought to myself, "why the fuck did I even bring up this shit... I'm about to turn a good time with alcohol and good music into a discussion on race." The crazy thing about is my white co-worker is liberal (by my definition). She's a mid 40s foster child who labels herself a "recycled hippie." I didn't think it would be hard to explain but right off the bat I was sorry I had to explain and sorry that my favorite white person on job had taken offense to something I said.

I proceeded to break down to her how the show only profiles people who are middle class. People who are the anomaly in their family and have a foundation to return to after the intervention. She mentioned trailer park white people and I had to agree with her. You will not find a trailer park white person on that show. The people profiled are usually people who come from fairly well to do families who have suffered some extreme trauma such as an abandonment from a parent, abuse from a parent, sexual abuse from _________ or PTSD from war... some also deal with anorexia or bulimia. The show is based on addiction but I'd say ninety percent of the people profiled are addicted to drugs. Anyway I found apologizing to my co-worker but explaining that the show failed to profile the people we deal with in our work. Never have I seen anyone (or immediate family) that seemed to have a life of poverty be profiled. The only black person I've seen was a former pro basketball player and I once saw an Indian guy whose family was watered down (forgive me) to the point where those who staged the intervention looked white.

In the introduction to the show there's a stat that appears that says something like "___ million Americans suffer from addiction." My question is why do they never profile those in poverty. Although my co-worker got the point I was trying to make, I have to admit that I knew she would. My concern is that the show builds this picture of someone who suffers from addiction and frames it as an illness. The show lets you see this person getting high but it also shows what in their past may have made them supseptible to addiction. I like the show for that reason. My primary beef is that it doesn't show people of color people in poverty. All to often our society thinks of those who are poor and suffering from addiction as choosing to be addicts as a lifestyle like a crack addict chooses to leave their kids because their bad parents and not suffering from an addiction. In the show "Intervention" a white person leaves their children and the children are taken in by other family members while their parents are portrayed as people dealing with a sickness. It's like so and so has a common cold and will go to rehab after the intervention to get antibiotics and everything will be okay.

I'm not sure why the show chooses to take this route but I have a feeling that they want a happy ending. Happy endings make people feel better. If every intervention failed than people wouldn't want to see it. People like to see/hear stories of triumph where people rise above the odds. And to the people at "Intervention" the more people they can attract the more/better advertising they get. Covering people in poverty (or simply poor people with poor families) who go through interventions would be much more harder to frame in a positive way. What are the odds of a person going through an intervention and rehab and returning to poverty and little financial support-as far as food and shelter) How do you get a person whose family has only food, clothes and shelter to offer. While those three basic necessities may be hard to offer for someone in poverty they often are. However those suffering from addiction still face are a lot.

Anyway I found myself trying to break this down to some co-workers. At one point I apologized and said how prior to my current job I worked for an organization that funded community organizing and talking politics was more than water cooler talk and was a part of the job. It felt weird saying it, but when the person I was talking to said "oh" and then started talking about Obama, I realized how fortunate I was to be working at a place where talk of politics because while people may have good hearts and vote democrat that doesn't really mean shit in the big scheme of things. It only reinforced my feelings on a show like "Intervention" that attempts to show what its like to deal with addiction but fails by only show middle class and primarily white people.

a sample;

Labels: race, television

new nas is dope.
album formerly known as 'nigger' and now untitled is a unified concept album with songs having layer after layer but it's not so crystal clear-but then again that's nas.

behind the scenes of a video shoot for his song 'sly fox' (fox news)

I’ve waited awhile to write about what I do, as in what I do from nine to five. I’ve tried to wait until I feel that I have a grasp as is to what it is I actually do and the role I play. Short and sweet: I work with kids and families with “special needs.” I’ve come to see “special needs” as a blanket understatement. When I think about what I do I feel like I can’t put it into words. So I will attempt to do so by documenting my experience. Not my day-to-day experience, but how the job has effected me over the last six months.

Oringinally I thought the work would be simply acting as a mentor and “dropping gems,” or speaking words of wisdom. I thought the job would be like in the movies where the an older guy drops a gem on a young protagonist and sparks some sort of revelation within him . Early on I realized it wasn’t like that.

One of the first kids I got was soooo easy. We’d go out and talk a bit and I thought he “got it.” 16, on probation… had been caught with a little weed and kicked out of a few schools but from what I can tell he was a normal teenager except for maybe a learning disability, but even then I imagine that outside of the classroom he was just a normal teenager. It didn’t take long for the truth of his addiction to meth to boil to the surface. And just as the addiction began to reveal itself so did his home life: two parents on the verge on divorce playing house for who knows what reason- maybe they stayed together for the kids, but this kid was living proof that their efforts did more damage than good.
Anyway it didn’t take long for this kid to violate his probation and get locked up. Up until two weeks before he got knocked I was on his side and believed that no child should be held in detention. But the intensity of his addiction as well as his home situation made detention the best option available for the 17 year-old kid to get his mind right before he hit 18.

That’s an example of where my work seems not to make a difference, but on the other hand I have a 16 year-old on probation who’s problem started with ditching. Since I’ve met him his largest problem has been attending school. No learning disability (his teachers say he does fine when he’s there) just no interest. His home situation hasn’t been all that great… I’ll avoid going into detail, but to give you an idea of his situation, he’s spoken of group homes in positive way-he’s able to identify the pros of living in a group home on the spot. It’s easy to say that all of our kids would be different had they had different parents, but what this kid it screams. I watched him attempt to satisfy the terms of his probation with no support at home. He suffers from a fear of failure that is identical to his mothers. So for him to start taking steps that are out of sync with his mothers and all he knows has been amazing. He’s a graffiti artist and it seems to be his one source of pride. I’ve been careful not to knock it while still telling him to be smart about what he does. I find it ironic that a kid with such low expectations of himself and his real namesake, who has fallen through the cracks of our educational system, been ushered into the justice system takes pride in and expresses himself by marking our walls with an alias. This kid is starting to get it. He's learning t that no matter how much energy i put in the other 90% of the work has to be done by him.

Not all the kids I work with are on probation, but it is those I favorite (although I’m not supposed to). It is because they have the same problems as the others but they face imprisonment. And the truth is, while my team of 4-5 is paid to work with them there is an army of men paid to lock them up with much faster and with less effort than I invest. I think that’s been the hardest thing to reconcile. When I accompany a kid to court, out of the two hundred kids waiting for their time before a judge I wonder how few have the support that my program offers. I feel like somewhat of a band-aid for a larger problem(s): the criminalization of youth, a wack educational system and poverty to name a few. I’ve gained a whole new appreciation for community groups that work toward policy change, seemingly striking at the root of problems. I feel as though they aim to cut out the cancer while my role is more of an antibiotic.

On any given day I can see up to three clients. In one day I can be inspired, flabbergasted and disheartened. The key is to take them one by one. I’m still trying to figure out how to leave it all at work but I don’t see how its possible. Its trench work… how do you get in the trenches without getting any dirt on you?


I’ll stop now.

I just made it back from NYC. When I was little I traveled out there with my grandmother a few times-four I think-but I haven't been out there since I was thirteen. So the idea of visiting the big apple as a grown man was exciting.

My first glimpse of the NYC was Queens. I couldn't see much from the window of the shuttle van but at one point, across the highway I spotted Jamaica Hospital which told me we were in Jamaica Queens. The first thing to come to mind was "I'm from South side Jamaica Queens," as rapped by 50 Cent. If there was one thing I looked forward to about traveling to the East Coast it was traveling to the birth place of hip-hop. After passing through Jamaica Queens and entering Manhattan I didn't see any signs but I did see a skyscraper sized image of a Puff Daddy advertisement. Matter of fact in anticipation of the trip I attempted to book a hip-hop tour.

The first tour I tried to book didn't have enough people, but then I found this one, which seemed more official, but it was booked! So my next step was at least trying to see some of the murals in the city. In particular I wanted to see the one of 2pac with the words "live by the gun, die by the gun" surrounding him. I asked a few people about the mural and no one knew anything about it. One person did tell me where murals of Big Pun and Big L were, but he also let me know that "it's not safe to go there."

Unfortunately my immersion into the birthplace of hip-hop stopped at about the ankles. Besides a little graffiti (which i can see in LA) the only hip-hop I saw or heard was in the bars I visited. The only other expectation I had for the trip was the opportunity to witness its culture. Someone once told me that NYC was a good place for writers because the city is so alive. From the moment I heard that I wasn't sure whether that's a good or bad thing. I can be somewhat quite and reserved so much so that I try to avoid crowded and loud places. So the thought of a whole city screaming in my ear appealed to me as more stressful than inspiring.

My first sight of Manhattan was on a Wednesday morning at 9am-rush hour. I stared out the window attempting to classify the crowds of people. It was impossible to peg anyone person- the shoulders of the double-breasted rubbed with t-shirts and together they all moved in unison, their streagnth and numbers rivaled only by motor vehicle- the two (man and machine) moved amongst each other as if the sidewalks were roads and vice versa. It was all so overwhelming. As the shuttle driver manuevared through pedestrians and other cars like the two shared a common ancestor I couldn't help but think "what the fuck is this?"

It took me a good day to get used to the speed of the city. I'd hesitate to say that Manhattan is an accurate representation of all of NYC because there were no children. The only time I saw children in Manhattan were at the tourist spots such as the top of the Empire State Building. I'd guess that the rest of the children were left at homes outside of Manhattan. On a side note, I don't think I saw one bird in NYC.

It was a cool trip. I wish I could have stayed longer to see and experience more. It'd be cool to stay for a month just to see if I could adapt to the speed of the city. I'd say my favorite thing about the trip was the subway. The thought of living in a place where you can exist without your own personal vehicle is attractive. I also met some cool people:

there was Greg who was staying in the same hotel. Greg is a 29 year-old Army vet from Chicago who works as a contractor for the National Guard traveling the country 300+ days a year. Greg was a cool cat who I not only shared a relationship with hip-hop but had a history that included a grandfather who was a mason, a crushed skull, drug deals gone wrong and a brief stint as an A&R.

there was also the bartender dylan who was writer. dylan moved to NYC from Minnesota. He writes at comedy blog at www.dylansworld.blog.com

And then there was the lady with the 12 year-old daughter that wanted to be a paleontologist. We met them in an ice cream store. She recommended butter pecan and her daughter cookie dough. I had both. Her daughter's mannuerisms, tone of voice and word choice hinted at a maturity that wasn't average, but at the same time still revealed her age. Her mother shared her experience on 9/11. She said how she was scheduled to be in the one of those buildings at 11am. She said how she had many friends in those buildings. She told us how she saw two people covered in so much dust from the collapsed buildings that she couldn't tell their sex until they talked. She said the dust was thick but then she told us how she and the women hugged. I imaged the transfer of dust. She went on to say how she went and stood in a line for a blood bank-a line that traveled around the block. She said she watched as rescuers brought in law enforcement and fire fighters, but "no one else could be saved." So many people were ready to give blood, but the sacrifice wasn't needed. While she talked, her daughter's silence reminded me that she was all but five years-old when it happened. More than half of this girls life has existed after 9/11.