SECTION THIRTEEN
POETRY PAGE FIVE
sm
COLUMN
FIFTY-EIGHT, APRIL 1, 2001
(Copyright © 2001 Al Aronowitz)
A
Docu-Poem
The
Battle of the Lower East Side: Observations and Pleadings
There
is no civilization. There is no humanity.
It’s
total war for living space in NYC.
These
words were spray-painted
on
the sidewalks of Wall Street in 1991
by
an artist identified as Susie.
I
started coming to the Lower East Side in New York City in 1991,
during
then-Mayor David Dinkins’ assaults
on
the homeless camps of Tompkins Square Park.
This
is the testimony of Israel Gordon Rivera:
“When
those people were thrown out of Tompkins Square Park,
the
homeless park of the world, they were thrown on the backs
of
the community and more crime erupted.
Now
we’ve got AIDS and the drug epidemic.”
This
is the testimony of Terry Taylor:
“I’m
Terry T. I’m the Minister of Madness.
You
see the Lord sent me. I’m a Black spiritualist.
Minister
of Madness. They gave me that name when
I
went to the March on Washington in ’89.
I’m
an activist for human rights.
I
march against unjust things, as in
killings,
police brutality,
our Medicare,
our welfare.
I
goes to jail for it.
The
city government is trying to push us aside,
trying
to say that we don’t exist.
They
know there’s 90,000 homeless people in this city alone.
Before
David Dinkins was mayor, he was borough president of Manhattan.
This
was still in ’89.
He
had 400 people in front of him before the March on Washington.
He
told us to go give them hell.
This
was a letter that was no good.
Dinkins
was the first person to send the police on us.”
Terry
Taylor died of AIDS in 1992.
I
finally moved to the city in 1995 during
the
pitch of the battle to save social services
from
the hungry jaws of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Gov. George Pataki
during
the Newt Gingrich reign of the Contract On America.
I
participated in the April 25 “This City Is Ours” bridge shut-downs,
an
action bringing together welfare and homeless clients,
low-income
students, health care advocates, and victims of police brutality,
an
action called by bell hooks, native of Bowling Green, Kentucky.
And
a cop told me in the Tombs under Manhattan District Court,
“They
shoulda bombed Tompkins Square like Beirut
I
should be cop in Haiti where ya don’t hafta concern yourself
with
constitutional rights --
beat
the fuck out of ‘em if they start pullin’ that shit.”
Then,
I left again.
When
I returned in 1998, the “no future”
the
late ‘70s punks prophesied had come to pass.
The
swagger, the quick boasting of street talk,
the musical ebullience of spoken language,
the dazzling downtown grafitti and murals,
the punk fliers slapped on lamp posts advertising
loud, fast music, theater, and anarchist picnics,
the gaudy drag queens parading down West 20th St.,
--
and most significantly, the homeless people --
(crazy
but salient street observers)
all
were gone, replaced by new city denizens
hollowed
from over-time, nose-to-the-floor labor,
the
spark of resistance burned from their eyes.
Who
will tell the people,
speak truth to power,
rise to the occasion in the hour of steel and chaos?
What
happened?
No
secret.
Social
services were gutted,
the
most eloquent and vibrant of the underclass were cut down by police
fire.
Their
names are Amadou Diallo, Patrick Dorismond, and Anthony Rosario.
Public
spaces were pillaged by the private interests
of
developers and waves of gentrification swept poor people
out
of the center city, consigning them to remote ghettoes,
making
New York City a vicious, visionary example
for
the rest of America, for the rest of the Americas.
This
is the triumph of capitalism and the annihilation of the left,
the
legacy of Rudolph Giuliani in the mean streets
of
the post-future American city.
This
then, is not a eulogy for a dead city.
This
is a wail of anger to animate the bones of the metropolis,
to
raise the spirits because even as the city is laid to
waste
by the commercial privateers and robber barons,
solidarity
and camaraderie in struggle persevere through
the
most remarkable bands of resilient resourcefulness and ingenuity.
We’re
getting our asses kicked
and
half the time we don’t even realize
the
fight’s being picked with us.
2001,
New York City -- 10,177 children sleep in homeless shelters on any
given
night
Guards
stand outside of the shelters prohibiting residents from
describing
their circumstances to reporters from the New York Times.
This
is the news from the last decade. This is year one in society.
Meltdown
expected, but I have no fears.
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