To All The Yes.. But People of Flint,The Little Library is a success in our neighborhood- Mott Park

 

After reading so many of the comments about the little library in Mott Park, I want to explain to the people   why the library is such a success. And since people in favor or against the library give attributes to the event based on their limited experience, may be a neighbor that has observed the event unfolded in front of her eyes could tell you the real story.

I live two houses from the little library and I have seen the effect it has on people. Yes , it is a simple little library with no more than fifty books, and so, it is not the books what is at the center of the debate, for books can be bought from internet places to bookstores to take them from the library.

The truth of the little library is that has created an excuse to be engaged in a community activity. It is like being invited to play a game if you want. And so, day after day, families stroll to the little library and take some books and put some books.

And so, the little library has become what in the architectural language means  a node or a point of reference. People walk to and from the little library. People have an objective to stop there and sure they do it. Some stop and take pictures next to the little library, some go for the hunt to find a nice magazine or book, some go to put the last great American novel to share with somebody else. And so in the best participatory event is proven like Wikipedia that people can be generous, interesting, adventurous and curious and raise to the occasion when the right environment is there to make it grow.

And so, what started as a wish (from Sara and her family) has transformed a corner of Flint because people likes to be involved in things that are successful. Everybody care about the little library because is part of everybody. My children take books and put books despite that we drive to the libraries at least two time a week, and yes we  homeschool via internet.

 The little library is our little miracle that tell us, people in Flint are good if you give them high expectation and confidence that they could do something good for the community.

You will be amazed at the selection of books, and magazines, for they are rather varied and interesting. So to the ones that think that library is only books, I have to say the little library is an space that allows us neighbors to express all the good have in our hearts.

And for the naysayers I have to say: movements are always made by yes people.

Marta Wyngaard

Flint Has Always Been a Poor Town, Even When Tens of GM Factories were around. Poverty is Lack of Choices and that Abounds in Flint.

Flint is per excellence the definition of poverty

You have heard about the terrible things that happen in Flint when no hope, anger, ignorance and humiliation get combusted in the mind of young men? They kill themselves for pennies or phrases or honor…And now that summer has started Flint, and is hot and no money for anything…well you get the picture.

But please, do not get nostalgic thinking that Flint was before in the past because the truth is that has never being. Flint has always been a poor city and that make everybody very very angry.

Poverty is always equated with money because money gives you option, is the currency of choice. But also poverty is the lack of and in town the lack of voice and choices is monumental. People here are still treated like less than or in other words like poor.

When I came here from Atlanta several moons ago, I was amazed at how much Flint had in terms of services like two library systems, a cultural center, universities like Kettering University, University of Michigan, Mott Community College, Baker College, etc. parks, the Flint River in the center of the town, etc.

So why Flint feels and looks like a poor town?  Why Flint looks like things are patched with tape and ready to break into pieces at any moment?

I know, I know people will get offended by this but Flint has two things that makes it a poor town. It has a mono industry that is controlled by few hands. And it has not diversification. It is the same that happen in towns that have gold or copper and a group extracting the material and people with very few options that to work in the mines or nothing.

In Flint, even in the boom times, Flint was like a mine town, and worse because it has all the pretensions of a great city. Flint has a car to build disposable hands to work. Yes, it pays good, but it treat people like disposable and that is why in Flint  you have so many factories and next to the factories bars and bars and bars like the wild west.

So, although people had worked they knew and the managers of the factories knew and the managers of banks knew that people did not have choices. They were poor. Or you work in the factories for a good pay or you languish in the streets because nobody will hire a person that does not know how to read or write or know only to put tires in cars because that is what has done all his life….So, people like all poor people are trapped and that is why in Flint that sense that there is no escape is something it enters in your breathing like the humidity of a basement. That is why you see the comments of people in the Flint Live that feel more like old lions in a circus- they could do is make noise.

Poverty is the lack of choices and Flintonians have very few choices available, and being a democratic demagogic town, in the name of public good, Flintonians have less options than other places.  Schools are bad and waste children’s time. School designed in the industrial revolution to keep children out of the streets, pass them and graduated them to work in the factories, when reading or math was not a necessity. Schools tracked few children and that that is why Mr. Walling was selected to receive all the goods, he was going to college while the other kids NO.

So now, with an industry that is not a mono industry that controls all the sources, and a populations that is passive aggressive and that has learned to be caged in a corner, and a few businesses that want to continue making all the decisions and treating people like discarded items, we have a long way to go.

It seems very difficult for the few business to understand the we are all in this together and when the poverty of Flitnt get to them, they want to build gates like is happening at Kettering University and Hurley Hospital

What is so degrading about poverty is that carries a sense of a plague and nobody wants to be close to poverty just in case the hole eat them too.

But poverty and the lack of choices in Flint is eating all of us because like I say poverty is the lack of and in Flint we have lack of so many thing it “produces more “lack of.”

So I hope that makes you think, for to change Flint we need a new definition of poverty and a new acceptance that to change this town we need more than tracked bright kids (who are completely disconnected of poverty….they were the lucky one that scape the fate of the town), and charity and the good intentions of people that want to help the poor by making sure the poor continue being poor and not become an economic force…

Until them think in all they ways you also are poor, just because you were born in Flint.

Marta

The Miseries of Poverty Compound When People Equate Poverty with Stupidity…No Wonder the Kids in Flint Are so Angry..

In Flint poverty is our dirty word…

MWT

Living in a changing neighborhood has its miseries because as the population of affluence moves to the suburbs, you are left with a mix of middle class and struggling lower class, and strange things start to happen.

Yes, the stores surrounding the neighborhood not only start catering to that demographic, yes we have a humongous pawn shop around the corner, a cash check area, a one dollars store and the like, the same employees of those stores start treating you like an stupid human being.

In general because I have car and money I shop in stores that treat me with decency, but today, I had to buy a cough syrup in one of the drug stores around home.

While I was waiting to pay, I was observing the behavior of the cashier that was between paternalistic and downright insulting. Yes, in front of me there was an old African American man buying something, but did he deserve the treatment of being consider poor and stupid?

I imagine that the woman at the cashier who already is and struggling poor person felt good about herself to explain things like we could not add or subtract.

At the center of the discussion of poverty in Flint, we have to talk about all behaviors which alienate poor young men, that have received so many times the same concept in their schools that are convince they are not useful for anythineaseg more than blew our city in pieces…

Who says that poverty equate stupidity?

Please,  move this city we need to believe that we can and that means believing that we have a brain which is like a muscle that can be exercise.

So, when you see a poor person that has problem reading and writing, it is not that are stupid, the need to practice a little bit more.

And please do me a favor, if you can shop in places that treat you like a thinking person.

Thanks,

Marta

Responding to the Flint Journal : Oh no, let me count the number of ways why I am pleased Mr. Brown and not Mr. Walling is handling Flint Affairs

 

Dear SIR:

Responding to the article about “Governor should have picked Walling as emergency manager,” I have to respond “Oh no, let me count the ways why I am very pleased Mr. Brown and not Mr. walling is handling Flints affairs thanks to Governor Snyder.

Humbly I have to accept that I made a great mistake when I helped Mr. Walling in two campaigns to become Mayor of Flint, for I equated brain and education with good leadership. I made also another mistake because I equate his coming back to Flint for caring for the underprivileged residents. After all, he was the bright kid that did well and was bringing all his experience to use.

The truth is that Mr. Walling is rather a poor leader that does not connect with poor people and does not have interest in understanding nor learning the forces of poverty and crime in Flint (persons below poverty level in Flint- percent 2006-2010 = 36.6 % US. Census Bureau- Flint).

Everybody knows that Flint has lost job, and lost tax revenues. And everybody who could leave Flint for a better job or opportunity is moving out. What is left, it is a pool of poor people with little hopes, and lot of anger and frustration, especially poor young African American teenagers.

So, when the Flint Journal wrote “this weekend’s crime shows that too many people in Flint have lost the value of human life-” said by Mayor Dayne Walling in response of the death of Tommy J. Vaughn, a 16-year old victim, I want to respond: It is so easy for Mr. Walling- a politician in power and in control of the city affairs to blame young teenagers for their rather bad choices of violence over life. Because the other way around will be much humble and somber for Mr. Walling the leader to ask. Why so many children are killing each other under my leadership in our city? Why there are so many guns in the streets and I do nothing to stop it? Why I keep so many liquor stores open when the city is dwelling in population? Why I do not declare the city in an emergency state of an epidemic of crime and humbly ask for help?

Since Mr. Walling has become the Mayor the situation with crime has deteriorated specially in his neighborhood the College Cultural, Glenwood neighborhood, and my neighborhood-the Mott Park neighborhood where another child this time 14 years old Antonio Jr Bell was killed in the park a week ago.

Should I feel frustrated? Of course. Should I be pleased Governor Snyder is trying to bring some order to this city that is run by teenagers out-of-control and leaders in denial?

We could die of negotiation with the unions for pensions and better jobs but if crime is a plague that is destroying the city by repealing possible business for coming and making families fly away taxes will continue decreasing. Without taxes from residents who support the city nothing moves. Even the salary of Mr. Walling is paid by our taxes.

When Mr. Jerome Dallas talks about the destruction of liberty in the city of Flint, I want to ask where are the rights of poor teenagers from Flint? The only thing they have which is very little and it is time, it is being wasted by superficial adult rhetoric and ego because at the end of the day, in Flint we have teenagers that are dead, teenagers that will end up the rest of their lives in jail and teenagers that will become a parasite of the society with low self-stem and very few abilities to work on good paying jobs because they are absolutely un-educated.

When Mr. Dallas Winegarden Jr. writes “we are protecting our children’s future in a free society that takes care of the safety, health and welfare of all the people, not just the rich and powerful,” I want to drive him around some areas in Flint so he could show me where is the health, safety and welfare of the poor children in Flint because I do not see it, and I do not need to drive very far from my home. The children in Flint have no voice because nobody is accountable for them and if Governor Snyder at least acknowledges that Flint has a problem is more than anybody has done for these children in a long, long time.

We can talk and talk about the tyranny of democracy and all the good words but the reality of Flint requires common sense and caring two things that Mr. Brown is well known for. Ended, Mr. Brown has solid credentials on caring for children and the poor. And his expertises in those areas are welcomed in a city with an abundance of poverty and problems created by poverty. Please read Mr. Brown experience with Red Cross, United Way, Youth counselor, at Wikipedia- Michael Brown.

Finally when Mr. Jerome Dallas Winegarden writes that we will not be surprised by the “horrible decisions Mr. Brown will make.” I want to say that I welcome Mr. Brown with open arms because he makes decisions that we need while Mr. Walling has done none.

And for Mr. Dallas Winegarden I suggest him to sell his expensive car and donate all the money to the poor children of Flint in that way, for sure, his father would truly be eternally proud of him.

Marta Wyngaard

In Flint, we want the “other child,” that killed Antonio Bell Jr to get looked in jail, so we could forget about this nightmare…and soon.

Poverty is the worst form of violence.
Mahatma Gandhi

When a child choose death over life at a young age of 14, what does it say about us society?

When and how are we passing this child the information that life is so cheap? Where has this child learned that disagreements are solved with blowing the brain of another child in few seconds?

When and how this child has understood that he was alone in this world and that his life hanged from the power and inexperience of another 14 year old teenager?

When society closes the loop with a simple equation of A+B+gun= death, then there is very little to add. The A+B+ gun becomes a given, something that we are not planning to analyze, nor ask the important questions that need to be answered. And so blame take a live into itself.

“He was not from Mott Park, maybe he was in drugs, maybe he was in something bad, maybe was his fault to listen to the other boy..”

The reality that nobody wants to uncover in Flint is much more complex. This child is dead because a mountain of little things that were supposed to go well went wrong and so, all this things added to a turning point  moving in a  direction that ended in an abysm.

So, I will, like I did today, keep searching for answers because this is what I have …his name, my park, his death, my sorrow, the unfairness of violence, and a desire to stop it forever!

Until next time, start seeing yourself as part of the solution, if not we will have a very sorrowful summer…

Marta

 

He does not live in Mott Park, doesn’t he? And in an strange way Antonio Bell Jr. will always be part of Mott Park…

That is what neighbors were comforting themselves after the death of Antonio Bell Jr. in our park.

Why? Because by making him a child that is not from here, it gives us permission not to worry anymore…he was not from here, he was from the poor area in town.

And so, his poverty does not infect our souls and we can continue pretending that poverty does not exist.

For me, that sheer of denial is broken, and although he was not my child, he will be in my soul for the rest of my life.

I have never seen him, and yet, his death as affected more than any words I can say, for I have a son who is fourteen and I cherish him like the most valuable treasure in my world.

And so, I am in a quest of ending violence in Flint for the poor youth in Flint…will I succeed? Who knows, the only thing I know is that if I continue thinking that he was not from here…he will never be.

And it is something I can not do…I can not walk in the park, the park I love so much, pretending nothing has happened. Mott Park, the place I have taken my children to play since they were little. In that same place violence has destroyed a child because …and the list is so long…because he was alone…because…violence is a way of life in Flint…because ..we adult care little about poor teenagers that live in Flint..etc.

And so, this young man who was a total stranger until yesterday has become my guidance to ask me to do something…it is time to do things different…it is time to see teenagers that are poor as children that have potential and that their lives are as valuable as any other child in Flint…could we say like the children who will attend Powers?

I am walking a path that is new to me, for I am not white, nor black, nor from here. Yet I can feel the anger, frustration, shame, desperation, of teenagers in Flint that have nothing to lose than their lives…isn’t that so absolutely sad…

Until next time, help me to think new ways to solve the problems of youth violence in Flint.

From the bottom of my heart,

Thanks

Marta

The sky is falling, the sky is falling because a teenager was killed in Mott Park last weekend!!!!

 

…What I feared the most has happened, a chilled barely 14-year old teenager was killed in the park, in Mott Park, in my neighborhood.

And now, it is personal, this child has changed my life in ways I can not explain. Murder and sorrow is not far. It is not coming from the North, it is here is in front of my conscience…is it in my life.

The sorrow is making me things I never thought I will do like write to whomever, and say what I need to say because things need to change.

I do not know how and when, but I will do “whatever it takes” to move this mountain of inertia because no one more child need to die in my neighborhood to have a wake-up call.

Yes, I am writing to Kettering University president, and the board of trustees, and I care less about their egos what people will say because this child who I have never meet is making me to do this.

I have a child that is thirteen and the same day that the crime happened we were going to celebrate the opening of a play that he was acting…one was celebrated the other was alone and without protection …and that is why violence touched him and took his life…what an irony…his name means PRICELESS, inestimable worth…can he become my partner to change things in Flint? It seems so,

Until next time, please care for the children in Flint…and please help me.

If Antonio was alive, he would have told us what is necessary to bring love back in Flint.

Marta

There is plenty of information about the crime in http://www.mlive.com/news/flint/index.ssf/2012/06/14-year-old_boy_shot_and_kille.html, and now that he is gone, we will continue reflecting on what does mean for me, my children, my neighborhood, and Flint.

Thanks