the lion review feb. 2015
DESCRIPTION
Vol. 1, No. 1 | 2015 -- Don't Forget About the Poor People!TRANSCRIPT
1
FEBRUARY 2015
2 THE LION REVIEW
Vol. 1, No. 1 | 2015 EDITOR-‐-‐-‐IN-‐-‐-‐ CHIEF -‐-‐-‐Immanuel Sodipe SENIOR EDITOR -‐-‐-‐Eduardo Martinez FICTION EDITOR -‐-‐-‐Dylan Brock SPECIAL THANKS -‐-‐-‐Shauna Burkhalter -‐-‐-‐Tyler Snodell -‐-‐-‐Andrew Frey
This month’s featured artist is Andrew Frey. A student at Illinois State University and aspiring educator, Andrew Frey is the artist behind this
month’s issue’s cover.
10, IN REVIEW Don’t Forget About the Poor People by
Immanuel Sodipe and Eduardo Martinez.
Why do some people become homeless? And what can we do as citizens to better their lives?
3, A LETTER FROM THE EDITOR Never Forget 4, THE HUMORIST Indiana University Discovers that Black Men Don’t Have Magic Powers 22, FICTION Nopi The Goblin Frey’s Work 22, 23
7, FIELD NOTES
A Memorandum from Chicago’s West Side by Shauna Burkhalter
Shauna describes her experience volunteering at a charity on Chicago’s West side.
IMAGE OF EDITOR-‐-‐-‐IN-‐-‐-‐CHIEF
A 3 A LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
s editor-in-chief of this fine publication and on behalf of every staff member that put in late nights, compassion, dedication, and gallons of coffee to produce this issue of The Lion Review, I’d like
to say thank you for picking up a copy of the February issue of The Lion! This publication aims at furthering ideas of human community, philanthropy, and civic engagement so we’re glad that you picked this up. Maybe it was the brilliantly designed cover, or maybe someone put it on your desk. Either way, there’s a reason you’re reading this. My reason for writing this letter is the same reason we made this issue. Besides the editorial tradition, I’m writing this letter to urge you to never forget. Never forget about the poor, the homeless, the suffering. In rural areas and small towns, these people -- these human beings -- are hidden. In urban areas like Chicago, IL, where the dogs are treated more humanely than people, they are visible. They sit, cross-legged, on street corners with tattered cardboard signs. They are criminalized by the government and marginalized by society. So much so, that the efforts to alleviate their suffering is even criminalized.
Arnold Abbott of Fort Lauderdale, FL shares our reason. According to the Sun Sentinel, The 90- year-old chef was cited this past November for violating a city ordinance that puts restrictions on the location of outdoor feeding sites. At the time, Abbott faced 60 days in jail or a fine of 500 dollars. Abbott continues to feed the homeless telling CBS
News Miami “...as long as there’s breath in my body, I will fight it.” But the mayor of Fort Lauderdale, Jack Selier says he wants to look out for the good of all people including taxpayers and tourists who want to use parks and beaches without being overrun by the homeless. Mr. Selier, if you’re reading this, please don’t forget about the homeless and the hungry.
And let none of us, in conversation, in public policy, in daily life, forget about the poor people.
Immanuel Sodipe, EDITOR-‐IN-‐CHIEF
A
4 THE HUMORIST
Indiana University Discovers that Black Men Don’t Have Magic Powers
WRITTEN BY IMMANUEL SODIPE Image courtesy of US News & World Report
recent study conduc- ted by Indiana University in Bloomington provides evidence that Black men do not have magical powers. The study was conducted by two graduate students in psychology -- Seth
Brainerd and Colin Blackwell -- and was published in the American Psychological Association’s Monitor on Psychology magazine.
White male students from the University performed a task without the use of a spell and then performed the same task with the use of a spell. The hope was that this experiment would prove whether or not Blacks are more inclined to the use of magic than Whites. The study showed no variation in the ability to perform the task between the recitation of a spell and without. Furthermore, there was no variation between the ability of Black males and White males across the board.
“We had to do this study because there are just too many people that act like they are afraid of black people
5-- particularly black men.” Brainerd told us. “It is easy to make stereotypes and form misconceptions about a specific group of people if your social circle is completely homogenous. My sister’s boyfriend is black. He’s awesome. I can actually beat him in basketball.”
“I used to be racist until I did this,” said Blackwell. “This study that we did could change policing in this country. No one now can hide behind the thought of black magic like I used to. They’re just like us. If they are shot, they bleed just like us.”
This comes at a time after a Police officer in Carmel, IN shot and injured Darius O’Neil, an unarmed Black 19-year old, after suspecting him of robbing a bookstore.
Security footage from the bookstore shows a tall, white, bearded man stuffing a book underneath his coat and then walking out of the store. It also shows police arriving on the scene about 20 minutes later as Darius O’Neil is running out of the store with a backpack on, stopped by the police, and then shot in the leg.
The officer, Willard Dennison, a white man, testified that he confronted O’Neil because he looked “suspicious.” Officer Dennison claimed that he felt threatened though O’Neil had his hands up. “I pointed the gun at him and he start waving his hands like a maniac. His eyes were wide open and he was shaking. I thought he was preparing a spell -- like in the movies, you know. I was afraid for my life but I wasn’t trying to kill him. He acted like he was scared of police or something.”
Officer Dennison was fired from the Carmel Police Department and faces a charge of attempted murder. But he feels
that his treatment is unfair. “I guarantee you that if I actually killed the boy, I’d just be suspended until the tension quelled. But since he was only injured, I get fired and charged. Or shit, if my partner shot him, he’d get a promotion, a Facebook fan page, and an Indiegogo campaign. People could trivialize his death because then it’d be ‘black-on-black crime’ instead of police brutality. That’s racist.”
Officer Arion Cody told us that, “O’Neil wasn’t a suspect just because he’s a black man. He was a suspect because he frequents the bookstore.” Officer Cody added, “The bookstore owner told us that sometimes he sits and reads in the bookstore without buying the book and then returns it. That’s like... stealing words or something. Of course we didn’t know that until after he was shot, though. First he’s stealing words, next he’s stealing books, then he’s robbing the cashier at gunpoint holding 30 pounds of cocaine and 15 hostages while stealing even more books. It’s a slippery slope that they always fall into. He was innocent this time but I’m glad we prevented any future problems.”
O'Neill feels that he was unfairly targeted for a crime he didn’t even commit. “I didn’t steal anything. I was running out of the bookstore because I was late for work.” O'Neill continued, “I buy my books with the money I make working at the McDonalds but I been off for a good minute so I might get fired. Why am I being criminalized for frequenting a bookstore? I don’t steal. I just like to read and shit.”
# # #
Tell us what you think! Like what you’ve read (or don’t)? Tell us why at: thelionreview.com /editors-desk
6
Access this issue and other online exclusive content at theLionReview.com!
T
7 FIELD NOTES
A Memorandum from Chicago’s West Side
WRITTEN BY SHAUNA BURKHALTER
he posh, privileged majority of Lincoln Park came crashing down as we drove to the west side. The overpriced ice cream shops turned into abandoned buildings and empty, overgrown lots longing for inspiration. The trimmed trees and
frost-bitten flowers began to disappear as the sidewalks cracked with age and abuse. Paint cracked and windows slowly turned into plywood. I had always
heard about the west side’s plight, but I never ventured there since I was content existing within my cozy, white suburban home. But here we were - about to immerse ourselves in a reality we were completely unfamiliar with.
One of the core elements of DePaul University is understanding social justice and how to better the world while learning. One of the more prominent ways to implement this in the curriculum is by offering service immersion trips. By working in the Office of University Ministry I have
8close ties with the Community Service Office. One day they told me they needed two more people to go on the trip to the west side of Chicago and they thought that I would be a good fit. So about a month later, I hopped in a van with nine other DePaul students off to experience the injustices happening so close to our homes. We went in blindly without an idea of what we were to see or do. We just had to accept what was going to be thrown at us.
The first day was such a culture shock. We were staying in the East Garfield Park in the Marillac House. We were living with The Daughters of Charity – a band of nuns doing wonderful things in the Chicago area – on the fourth floor. The first floor houses a daycare center and a
of a soul into comprehending how these individuals are able to survive in this completely different world.
One of the students I was able to work with was a fourth grader. We were doing a math worksheet while he muttered something across the table to me. He stated, “Santa is white and Santa is good and he brings good and I’m Black so I’m not good and I won’t be good and I can’t do good.” All of the air was sucked from my body as he continued to justify his “fact”. An idea he knew to be as certain as the sky being blue. I quickly tried to negate his understanding of the world at large but my words of him being worth so much more than a
four-year-olds and I learned so much. Thanks to my high school, Golden Apple, and the library that I work at, I have had experience with students in this age group, but the Marillac House totally juxtaposed everything I’ve come into contact with with before. The students were being taught so much, and not just academically. Students also learn how to grow up in the environment in which they found themselves existing in. By the end of the week, the Marillac House began to feel like another home, solidifying the confidence regarding my future teaching.
We were also shown the food pantry that the Marillac House was able to offer
residents. I’d never food pantry for the elderly. The second floor is a continuation of the daycare program and the third serves as a charter school. Across the street was an extension of the Marillac House ,
HE STATED, “SANTA IS WHITE AND SANTA IS GOOD AND HE BRINGS GOOD AND I’M BLACK SO I’M NOT GOOD AND I
WON’T BE GOOD AND I CAN’T DO GOOD.” ALL OF THE AIR WAS SUCKED
FROM MY BODY…
been inside of a food pantry before, but this one just seemed to be so humanized. We sorted through boxes (this I had done for my Salvation Army at
serving as a home to an expansive food pantry and many multi-use rooms. It’s absolutely incredible how many things in support of the concept of social justice can be thrown into one building.
While we were working with an after school club, a terrifying thought crushed me. I thought there was no way that I would be cut out to teach at Chicago Public Schools. The Golden Apple Foundation was wrong and I won’t be able to find a way to connect with my students. I won’t be able to understand the complex relationship between home life and school performance. There’s no way I would be able to wrap my white-privileged sack
commercialized concept of wellbeing couldn’t reverse years of media and societal influence.
The second day of our immersion, we were introduced to the daycare on the lower levels. I will admit that I was a little worried working with such young children but I was ready for the challenge. This day long program takes in students from 15 months to around five years as long as their parent(s)/guardian(s) are either attending school or are working. This program is so important because these students get a head start in an already disadvantaged environment. I was placed in a classroom with three and
home before) and then walked through the process with those who came to get food. It was such a convenient experience because the “shoppers” were able to go through and look at the different food options that were available and choose what would fit their family’s needs. It was absolutely amazing what the pantry was able to offer the shoppers: fresh produce, fresh bread, meat (and other proteins – yes there were even vegetarian options), as well as recently baked pastries. Coming from a household that has never had to struggle to find food to put on the table, I never really thought of the importance of food
9 pantries offering all that this one was able to. There’s more to life than canned garbanzo beans and Kraft Easy Mac. While the shoppers were extremely grateful for all they were able to receive, I was astonished by the many donations and the variety of food that was being offered.
When I came back, a relative of mine said she thought it was nice of me to go out in the world and experience what I did, but she also had some words that struck a minor chord. She said that these programs would just reinforce the idea that individuals can get away with existing within society by doing nothing and getting free handouts. If you think this way, and have kept reading this far, please reassess. The children that were attending the free preschool programs had to have parents who are either working or are in school. This shows the children that they do need to do things in order to survive. Also, the food pantry that the Marillac House is fortunate to offer can only be used once a month per individual. While the food that they are able to provide for families is generous, it is not enough to live on for a month, let alone two weeks. Every individual I came into contact with
understood the importance of the services being offered and they were all extremely grateful for the assistance in addition to what they were able to do for themselves. It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to live off of minimum wage alone and these services offer hope to a place that needs it.
This experience was absolutely eye opening. I am blessed for having the opportunity to see Chicago in a light that I was unfamiliar with.
Every individual that I was able to interact with defied every stereotype that society placed on them. There is so much hope in this area despite the negative influences. It also really grounded me and displayed what is in existence so close to my “high-class” living in Lincoln Park. The fact that a majority of these children are subliminally conditioned to think that they’re burdensome and have a slim chance to go anywhere in life kills me. My existence hurts for the thought that we just came
thought that we just came into contact with the lucky children who have parents, relatives, guardians, etc. who find the importance of having them go to a school or are able to bring them to the programs that are being offered. There are so many more children who are out there who will have to rely on the Chicago Public Schools system alone to make it through.
###
Shauna Burkhalter, Freshman Majoring in Elementary Education at DePaul University describes her experiences participating in a service trip to Chicago’s poverty struck west side. Burkhalter is a 2014 Scholar of the Golden Apple Foundation, A Chicago-based organization dedicated to enriching public education in socio- economically challenged schools all around Illinois.
###
10
T
he morning of December 19th, I (Immanuel Sodipe) woke up exhausted. Struggling to complete my final paper for the semester, I sacrificed sleep for the sweet reward of a better grade. That same morning I went to Arnie’s, a
11
Don’t Forget
About the Poor People
by: EDUARDO MARTINEZ AND IMMANUEL SODIPE
local diner just around the corner from the Psi chapter of FIJI house at Wabash College. I had a meeting there with a lady named Samantha. We talked about her dreams, her hobbies, and her life story.
12 Fond of Sylvia Plath and
Virginia Woolf, Samantha likes to write poetry and she’s written five notebooks full of verse since she was seven years old. She loves Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy and the Pirates of the Caribbean series. In general, she loves Johnny Depp; the Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus is another one of her favorite movies. Her interests are similar to that of a lot of people. And like a lot of people, we face hardships. Some hardships come in the form of ailment, others in sleep deprivation (e.g. your average college student), others still in a more extreme fashion.
“My life sucks,” she told me. Her life is a product of poor conditions. She worked for
smaller portion of the homeless population in America, are those who are seemingly unemployable, often experiencing many substance abuse problems, mental illness, and/or physical disability. The episodic homeless are those that experience frequent but brief seasons of homelessness. They are often continuously unemployed suffering mental illness, medical disability, or other hindrances. And finally, Those that are transitionally homeless make up the majority of the homeless population. These are people like Samantha that just found themselves down on their luck, often having to choose homelessness and poverty to escape from domestic
According to Eric Cohen, a sociologist and researcher at Penn State University, increases in rural poverty over the last few decades may be attributed to the erosion of rural employment and earnings. Though his research took place in the late 1990’s, his conclusion rings true today. If people have no employment or limited earnings for a significant period of time, they will find themselves unable to support themselves financially and may find themselves homeless.
Additionally, research conducted and culminated by Laudan Y. Aron and Janet M. Fitchen in chapter seven of Homelessness in America furthers this notion. The authors posits, “Several types of rural
areas generate higher- eight years prior to our meeting but had to give her earnings to her abusive ex- husband in order to watch her children. One night in
“MY LIFE SUCKS,” SHE TOLD ME
than-average levels of homelessness. Among these regions that are primarily agricultural, regions with economies
November of 2013, she was awakened by the police and arrested for child neglect (she’d been out working all night). She lost custody of them. She’s been fighting to regain custody ever since, experiencing a brief stint in prison in the meantime. But she sees light at the end of the tunnel. In her mind, hope is nigh. Samantha is homeless, and so were about 610,042 people in the United States on a single night in January 2013 according to the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development. Samantha accounts for just one of the people living in transitional housing units, the demographic accounting for two- thirds of the homeless population on that night. There are three types of homelessness: chronic, episodic, and transitional.
The chronic, making up a
violence. Samantha currently
resides at Pam’s Promise, a transitional housing unit in Crawfordsville, IN -- the county seat of rural Montgomery County, IN. It is not the poorest county in Indiana, at a 16.9 percent poverty rate. Still, though, 16.9 percent of Montgomery County residents are subject to the plight of rural poverty. But what makes rural poverty so vicious? It’s plain: because of rural poverty’s cyclical nature, if one cannot break the cycle, he or she may be doomed to homelessness.
It’s a simple prose: inadequate income is often the cause of one’s poverty. In being impoverished, one’s access to basic necessities such as housing and healthcare is restricted.
that center on declining extractive industries…” These areas produce higher levels of homelessness because they produce higher levels of poverty due to a lack of employment opportunities. It is also because they do not have as extensive of social safety net as some metro areas.
Though Montgomery County’s economy does not center on a majorly declining industry, the majority of pre- existing jobs in the rural county do not offer a living wage. For a household in Montgomery County of one adult and one child, that adult must earn a wage of 16.98 dollars per hour. However, the wages of the top three industries in Montgomery County are all below that. Out of the top eight industries in
13 Montgomery County, manufacturing is the largest -- taking a share of 33 percent of the total division of employment and coming short of the living wage at an average 14.89 dollars an hour.
This monetary lack means people may become impoverished and might have to depend on social assistance to sustain them. But if there is a lack of this assistance, many will find themselves homeless. Naturally, one would seek easier access to those basic needs like housing and health-care assistance. But if that access is restricted, like it often is in rural areas, they most likely will remain impoverished thus rendering their condition cyclical.
Furthermore, the amount of low-rent housing in rural America has decreased dramatically. This means the prices are increasing due to the supply diminishing -- furthering the financial distance. Aron and Fitchen explain further that “Low wages and low public assistance benefit levels mean that many rural households are devoting half of their income to rent.” If they are doing this, they probably cannot afford quality health care without assistance. Yet, the access to affordable, quality health care in poor non-metros is also strained. Impoverished people living in rural areas are at a disadvantage for receiving adequate affordable health care compared to urban metros due to a lack of infrastructure resources available to them. Investing in infrastructure is difficult being that Federal funding for community development often bypasses many impoverished rural counties.
Homelessness is cyclical on a macro level. At a starting point, poor communities already lack the tax base to invest in
infrastructure to aid in alleviating homelessness and poverty. Since the federal government already overlooks these poor communities in administering aid, the aforementioned communities cannot even begin to invest in alleviating the homelessness and poverty in their community.
The Impoverished must seek affordable housing in order to abstain from being homeless, but when affordable housing is not available in an area where someone can access their employment site without it being a deep and crushing inconvenience, poverty’s cyclical effects can be felt. Many homeless people in rural communities receive income from employment or public assistance but are still unable to secure affordable housing because of the lack of social safety net in the form of affordable housing assistance.
Low wages create the poor. Lack of opportunity for social mobility sustains their poverty and can lead to homelessness. One must understand that fewer job opportunities, lower wages, and longer periods of unemployment also plague the rural poor more often than their urban counterparts. According to the National Coalition for the Homeless. Rural residents already experience low wages (seen in the case of Montgomery County, IN) and lower periods of unemployment. The fact that employment opportunities in rural areas are eroding and assistance is far off only increases the plight of the poor.
As horrible as it is, research shows that statistically, being brown contributes to that
as well. Allow me to clarify: by virtue of being brown, one is more likely to suffer the cycle of rural poverty. In counties with high concentration of brown people, income and assets are typically two thirds or less of the national average. In counties where Native Americans make up the majority of residents, income is less than half the national average. And as understood previously, low income creates the condition of poverty whereas a lack of safety net sustains it. In rural areas, resources don’t get to the poor and the poor can’t get to the resources. And the poor are disproportionately brown.
Though rural and urban poverty are caused by the same agencies, the plight of the rural poor is exacerbated due to a lack of a social safety net. There is no public transportation system to transport poor people from affordable housing units to employment sites and to health clinics. All of these factors -- low employment prospects, underemployment, poverty wage (or below living wage), lack of transportation to decent jobs and other human necessities, lack of government investment in health care infrastructure -- all contribute to the cyclical nature of rural poverty. Homeless people are already living in poverty. The fact that they cannot access other human necessities due to a lack of assistance only contributes negatively to an already sub-par living condition.
And the criminal justice system doesn’t help either. In places like Montgomery County, IN or other more rural areas, where there are deep pockets of poverty, going to
14 prison for something seemingly trivial (like a victimless crime) can mean a furthering of their pre- existing poverty or homelessness. The label “criminal” is the catalyst for chronic unemployment. It allows you to be legally discriminated against in employment and in most places, it warrants your disenfranchisement, your denial of public affordable housing, and affordable healthcare and other government safety nets.
This is also very true in urban areas where local governments choose criminalization over compassion in dealing with the homeless. Though similar in plight, the urban homeless, that is those whom are located in cities like Chicago or Atlanta, have some distinctions in their suffering other than population density. Holistically, the most apparent characterization for urban poverty is that it is a product of systematic racism.
II The night of January 3rd, I
(Eduardo Martínez) sat contently. Spending the day riding the “L” with close friends, I let time travel past me and missed my train back home. Sometime around midnight, the four of us sat down in the food court area of Chicago Union Station, though all the vendors had closed by then. As we all chatted, we were suddenly approached by a homeless gentleman. He was very polite, and though he seemed to have a stutter, very talkative.
Just after I gave him the change in my pocket, a police
officer came over and asked if the man was bothering us. Though we did not affirm the author’s accusation, the cop pulled the homeless man to the side anyway. Threatening to jail him, he told the gentleman to stay away from patrons of the station. Then, the officer came over to our group and proceeded to spew his case for defense. He let us know that he had not been violent towards the man, and that begging inside of the station was against the law. The cop tried to appeal to our vanity by declaring us to be America’s future. While I doubt he guessed that we were all to become teachers, I do believe he sensed we weren’t socially apathetic college students.
A few of the words he spoke to us still echo in my head. He said that because of our bright future, and imminent wealth and successes, we probably won’t need to care about what happens to the less affluent. He assumed that because he saw the homeless man as inferior, we would too.
After the cop left our side, the homeless gentleman returned, although we advised him to stay away lest the cop come back and kick him out to the winter chill. He spoke, we listened, and through his humorous attitude on the situation, we saw a humanized, not simply homeless, gentleman. When it was finally time for us to leave the station, our group talked amongst ourselves. We all felt like something had just been revealed to us, although we didn’t come to any conclusions. We simply circulated ideas on the situation. We considered our knowledge on poverty: the things we’ve heard versus the things we’ve researched. We questioned
the lives of those in poverty, and how they’re often treated as disposable beings. We simply talked about our dreams, our conceptions, and our commitment to equality. Personally, I thought about how wrong of an assumption the cop had made about all of us. I thought about how to change the way people view the big city’s poor children.
Urban homelessness is problem so apparent in modern American society that not even the most affluent, fresh from the cleaners, white-collar worker is able to evade its visibility. Though sharing some similarities, the unambiguity of the existence of urban poverty is a key point in what separates urban from rural poverty. Rural poverty is hidden, it lacks attention due to its location. In contrast, almost anyone living in a largely populated urban area can recall a time when a homeless man or woman was seen begging on the street. Despite the amount of attention urban poverty receives, the majority of it is not conducive to its elimination. In a research brief published by Brookings, Elizabeth Kneebone defines distressed neighborhoods as “tracts with poverty rates of 40 percent or more.” With 100 of America’s largest metro areas being a current home to them, it’s quite evident to see that current policies have yet to truly address the problems of poverty.
Communities suffer due to an exodus of affluent income households and an influx of unemployment, violence, crime, and poor-performing schools. But to fully understand the causes of urban homelessness, on must look more in depth into
15 the detrimental and cyclical systems in play inside of the realm of poverty. Kneebone claims that “Historically, concentrated poverty has been a largely urban phenomenon.” More specifically, because of historically systemic and societal oppression to people of color, the poor urban demographic has been thoroughly chastised as cities, much like the inequality gap, have expanded.
The 1900’s great migration brought a grand change to American society as 6 million African-Americans traveled north to find better living opportunities. When American capitalism began changing its production methods, many communities what were dependent on the need for unskilled labor took major blows. To rebuild these urban neighborhoods, there needed to be an influx of skilled laborers. The problem was that Jim Crow laws sought to limit opportunities for the advancement of people of color. These laws not only attempted to create a society full of racial separatism, but they also attempted to restrict people of color from being full-fledged citizens. The 1954 case of Brown V. Board of Education of Topeka ruled that a “separate but equal” society was not possible, but in fact, de facto segregation has continued to have a significant influence on society from that point on.
To undermine the successes of racial minorities after the dismantlement of Jim Crow laws, a new system of oppression was created. In her book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Michelle Alexander explains this new system. Spearheaded by the mass incarceration of
minorities and the so called “war on drugs,” the New Jim Crow laws continue the systematic oppression of people of color, only this time, making it much more inexplicit. The most interesting thing about this new system is the maintained facade of colorblindness. While minorities are by far the majority of occupants of high-level poverty neighborhoods, according to Kneebone, recent years have shown that the racial makeup has began to become more diverse, with an increase of whites.
It seems as if this new oppressive system purposefully takes a small amount of white casualties as a means to cover up and justify discriminatory policy. Through this system, not only are minorities being punished, but if whites end up in similar situations, they are ultimately considered to be just as disposable to society. Although minorities experience more societal disadvantage than white residents, a lie assuring citizens of color-blindness is told in order to prevent opposition to the system.
The official declaration of the war on drugs by Reagan in 1982 marked the start of a new era. According to Michelle Alexander, drug crime was actually on the decline when the war on drugs was started. What’s more, once drug arrests were
started, minorities made up a majority of them. A May 2008 article published in the New York Times claims that an adult black male is a dozen times more likely of being imprisoned from drug related arrests than an adult white male. Alexander explains how this disparity of arrests not only fails to directly address the drugs floating around in communities, but also makes matters worse for already disadvantaged. In the process of criminalization or rather, the New Jim Crow, the law goes
into the poor, drug-infested neighborhoods, and criminalizes people for not being able to survive with the limited resources available to them.
Picture this: A father has just lost his job because the local business is dying off. He has a loving wife and a young daughter. Looking for
16 employment all week, he comes home to his beat up, lackluster apartment space. His wife greets him with a hug and a kiss. It’s supposed to be payday, the kids are hungry and the bills are coming in. At a loss for words, the father can only make a face that yells disappointment for both of them. His 5 year-old daughter tugs at his pants. He picks her up, holds her, and makes a promise to himself that he will do whatever it takes to make sure his child is fed. He doesn’t want her to have to suffer through the things he did. He refuses to let the world take away her childhood. Desperate to see his promise
At this point, victims of urban and rural poverty are in similar situations; both having obstacles preventing decent employment and limited access to social assistance as well as an abundance of drugs. The difference is that criminalization policy targeting urban victims desperately trying to turn their life around punishes them for making an unpopular, but necessary decision: once again selling drugs to stay alive.
Ultimately, urban poverty is dependent on drug criminalization because drugs are used as tools for oppression. Despite the Fair Sentencing Act
distributed in larger quantities, is sold in safer, more secretive and affluent environments. While it can be argued that any drug arrest can get you time in prison, the targeting of minorities is shown by the 18:1 sentencing of crack versus cocaine. With the former having a significantly higher sentencing despite it being the same substance, it is clear to see that the New Jim Crow seeks to criminalize and incarcerate brown folk that live in poor communities. In actuality, the war on drugs produces more drugs instead of stopping them
from flooding through, he lets go of his morality and accepts his logicality. He knows that selling drugs is the only way to make
…HE WILL DO WHATEVER IT TAKES TO MAKE SURE HIS CHILD IS FED… DESPERATE TO SEE HIS
PROMISE THROUGH, HE LETS GO OF HIS MORALITY AND ACCEPS HIS LOGICALITY… SELLING DRUGS IS THE ONLY WAY TO MAKE
SURE THERE’S FOOD ON THE TABLE…
the streets. Without drug exchange within the community, systematic forces have less of a bases for arresting
sure there’s food on the table and a room over his family’s head. After a year of selling, life is not significantly better, but it’s enough. Then, the father gets imprisoned and once released, labeled a criminal. The chances of him finding a decent job were low before, but now, with this new legal discriminatory system, the chances of him contributing to the welfare of his child are even graver.
In the absence of jobs in the area, many people resort to selling drugs as a way to stay financially afloat. Once arrested, one is labeled as a criminal and unable to receive government assistance for food or housing. One can’t even receive a job because employers are reluctant to hire a criminal.
of 2010, which decreased the penalty disparity between crack and cocaine, 500 grams of cocaine gets you five years in prison; it only takes 28 grams of crack to get you the same sentence. The pharmacological differences between crack and cocaine are few and far between. Both made from coca leaves, cocaine powder can be snorted or injected and crack rock is smoked. Simply because of the form the substance is in, crack produces a quicker, more intense high than its snorted counterpart. However, if cocaine is injected, it can give a similar, intense high. Crack is also relatively inexpensive and sold in small quantities, making it prone to be sold in poverty stricken, and violent markets. Cocaine,
and incarcerating brown folk, showing poverty’s partial dependence drug criminalization. Poverty’s grasp has no boundaries; even those who do not participate in crime are punished. Under a tax system that gives the short end of the stick to the child that needs it the most, public schools serving in socioeconomically challenged areas struggle to provide students with basic resources. The blatant display of poor schools is not something that is hard to find. The public school system is directly related to poverty in the United States due to the unequal distribution of resources between the poor and the more affluent.
Take West Oakland
17 Middle School (WOMS), for example. WOMS is located on the west side of the bustling port of Oakland, California. Plagued by low socioeconomic status and school budget cuts caused by the passage of 1978’s Proposition 13, which limited property tax increase and thus limited the ability for the school to accommodate its growing population, the school is in desperate need.
In the January issue of 2012, Pedro Noguera of The Nation goes on to explain that “Changes in the composition of the school and the economic decline of West Oakland coincided with the shrinking of California’s budget for public education.” In turn, the educational, psychological, and physical needs of the students who attend WOMS have suffered. With shortages in guidance counselors, school psychologists, and nurses, children living in West Oakland are forced to settle for a second- rate education simply because they were born into a working-class family.
If low tax rates mean low performing schools, then increasing the tax rate is a logical solution, but one must remember that in areas where residents are already giving all they can give, an increase would not necessarily help their living situation. The current tax system traps people in their own social class by having the school’s class match the area’s class. In this manner, a blue collar child will attend a blue collar school and have a greater chance of obtaining a blue collar job. This cyclical pattern is indeed powerful, but the fact is that this is still a broad view of poverty’s causes. Getting into specifics, there are even more obstacles in the way of breaking the cycle.
It’s difficult to fight off poverty if you’re fighting for your health as well. In reality, both are very much intertwined. For the 42 million Americans living without health insurance, a trip to the doctor can be a more audacious burden than any sore throat. For individuals living paycheck to paycheck just to survive, a trip to the doctor could very well exhaust their living resources. It takes both time and money to get a check-up.
If you had to choose between taking a day off from your low-wage job to pay for an appointment and having enough money to eat everyday that week, which would you choose? Although given a bit more resources and locations to seek treatment than in a rural setting, urban poverty has it’s own set of obstacles to receiving proper health treatment.
Picture this: The middle school-aged daughter of the newly released drug convict approaches her father to tell him about everything that happened at school that day. Everything from the 1, 2, 3s to the loud bangs and getting down on your knees, school taught her about the real world at an early age. It seems that despite how hard her father protected her childhood, it was still robbed from her. Having heard, seen, and experienced damaging events all through her life, she cannot seem to be the happy little girl the world expects her to be. Ultimately, her mental and physical health has suffered from simply growing up in such an environment. She was born a victim of poverty.
One of the lesser-known, but most critically damaging problems in urban areas is the emergence of mental illness
within struggling neighborhoods. According to a 2005 research paper by Manny John González published in Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal, “One in ten children and adolescents suffer from illness severe enough to cause some level of psychosocial dysfunction. Urban children, and in particular low- income children of color, are at greater risk of developing mental health problems, and are less likely to receive effective child mental health services.”
Since the peak of the 2008-2012 recession, poverty depletion has reported as stagnant, with 2013 having the worst recorded year. This suggests that an increases in mental illness seems more likely if the poverty rate doesn’t experience a significant decrease in the coming years.
Because of “Daily exposure to community crime, gang induced violence, neighborhood drug infestation, and substandard housing conditions,” González claims that the mental health of urban children is easily susceptible to damage. Logically, a parent will seek mental health services for their child once signs of damage become apparent, but the first problem here is the lack of clinics available in poor areas. To add insult to injury, assistance that is accessible fails to meet the needs of racial minorities.
González’s study determines that community- based mental health services have failed to benefit minorities in the United States to the same extent as whites. According to González, “this disparity may be due to the fact that the unique
18 needs (e.g., cultural beliefs, language, help-seeking patterns) of families of color were not taken into full account when community- based mental health services were developed in the 1960's.”
González goes on to explain that mental health services that deny the psychosocial aspect of patients of color deny them their “basic cultural rights.” These include the right to make an agency aware of their culture in order to treat psychological needs, the right to retain the language they are most proficient in when receiving services, and the right to choose culturally specific services.
Ultimately, González addresses the reality of institutionalized racism in the mental health care system. González explains this idea by noting that “providers of mental health care who treat the psychological problems of people of color at the expense of neglecting the social, political, and economic injustices impacting this group are in essence perpetuating institutional racism in the mental health care system.”
With the seeds of mental illness being spread across poor youth, one can only imagine the amplified struggles the people of poor communities will face in trying to improve their living situation. With a system that fails to recognize skin color when it comes to helping instead of hurting, the less affluent are receiving faulty treatment that prevents them from real progress.
Alternatively, one can place the blame on low civic engagement as well as the system. Consider the community support for a health clinic or any program implemented to serve its community. Hayling Price, the
Policy Director of the National Human Services Assembly, believes that community engagement is key to maximizing the benefits of federal social programs. It’s quite easy to understand: once a federal program designed to help a community comes into fruition, it needs social support to stay alive. If a community fails to take action within the programs that are designated to serve them, then the community will inevitably remain at a disadvantage.
Price explains that while residents may participate in determining what a community needs, “involvement tends to decline after initial outreach activities.” As an effective solution to this problem, Price proposes the implementation of comprehensive community social programs with better definitions and inclusions of residents. Granting block grants and tax incentives to selected areas, Empowerment Zones (EZs) sought to rejuvenate local economies by encouraging the partnership between community parties to create jobs and business solutions. Citing cases missing the “opportunity to transition initial civic planning into a sustainable governance structure,” Price posits that with the right community involvement, EZ sites (and programs like them) can be effective.
Price has a considerable claim because of the nature of community involvement. While the government can build a house for a community, the state senators are not the ones who will be living in it. Only the community can run community programs because it is them who
know their area best. By having resources specifically tailored to community needs, effective solutions to specialized problems can be created. Things from small business to local schools can be fixed through this system.
Under the Obama administration, the White House Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative was formed. Price uses the 2010 case of the Cesar Chavez Public Charter Schools using one of the administration's planning grants to display maximized community participation. Price describes Promise Neighborhoods as a grant competition from the Department of Education used to promote “partnerships across education programs and social services that seek to provide comprehensive support to low- income children from birth through college to career.” This devolution tactic proved to be successful only because of the advisory board created through it. The board included both community and government representatives as well as school personnel, non-profit agencies in the community, and other important inclusions. With this plan in the hands of the community it serves, the grant was put to good use. It’s important to note that this case did not have any special help. It simply shows the power of civic engagement; the power of a community coming together to help their own people.
Indeed, the most frightening thing about all of these tools for oppression is that they are all related to poverty. From birth, the fate of these people living in poor communities is set on course.
19 Children in this urban setting will start off on the wrong foot when stepping into school, lacking the resources to properly educate them on how to survive the world around them. This, along with the lack of jobs in the area will give them incentives to turn to drugs in order to support themselves and their families. Falling right into a trap, minorities are incarcerated and criminalized –and eventually, deemed disposable to society. The lack of assistance at this point makes it so they have little choice but to become homeless, or to go back to selling drugs. It’s all cyclical.
Besides the current policies that govern poverty mentioned previously, there are other, more obvious regulations in play. Underneath all the systematic racism covered up by the claim to colorblindness, the most widely accepted policies in dealing with urban poverty are ordinances and restrictions that seek to criminalize and humiliate the less affluent, regardless of race. These rules and regulations cities create are made in order to hide, not fix, the poverty problem.
Some prohibited behavior include: loitering in public spaces, sitting in public spaces, camping in public spaces, sleeping in public spaces, begging in public spaces (by now, a trend should be seen.) These kinds of ordinances makes some questions appear: what is a public space? Who exactly is part of the public? While it is understandable that a mayor wouldn’t want tourists seeing the homeless population hanging around the park, is is most prudent to simply throw the problem somewhere else?
The homeless don’t just show up in public spaces make a
city look poor, they do so because they have no where else to go. They are living off the kindness of people. They are hoping that the public will help them help themselves. They are people, too. They should not be shunned for being down on their luck. Unfortunately, cities like Houston, Atlanta, L.A., and Chicago don’t consider this when criminalizing and jailing the homeless. With an emphasis on labeling the homeless as parasitic, many forget their humanity.
III One must come to
understand that policy doesn’t affect numbers and statistics, that human beings don’t fit perfectly into crevices of data. Policy affects people like Samantha or the urban homeless man taking shelter in the train station. To create and nurture a better society, we must all come together to address problems. We must not become complacent after taking the first step to ending poverty.
Setting regulations in federal programs that will serve to monitor the community involvement can only aid this struggle. With resources being made to help those in need, we must remember that a geographic community best knows its own people. Civic engagement in federal programs would insure that the needs of the community were not ignored because of a preexisting standard of help. No two people are the same. No two communities are the same. No
No two states are the same. We must treat areas of need as specifics, not generalities. Through community engagement, we can make sure of this.
To take it a step further, the implementation of extensive research to see how the programs in a community are working would be greatly beneficial. There is no point in keeping programs that do no good to the community they are invested in. Either reforms to a resource must be made, -- be it a school, a clinic, or a food pantry -- or the people must think of an alternative solution. These are the basic points of community help that can be directly impacted by the work of citizens. As important as this work is, however, there are some problems that extend beyond one person and one community. As mentioned previously the label “criminal” allows one to be legally disadvantaged. This disadvantage extends economically -- being denied public assistance and facing even lower job prospects (for life, mind you) because of that dreaded question: “have you ever been convicted of any felonies?” And for you college students, you’ve seen it, we’ve seen it, on the FAFSA. “Have you been convicted of any drug crimes?” Answering in the affirmative disqualifies you to receive government financial aid to go to college in order to increase your job prospects. How then could one honestly expect an ex-felon to turn his/her life around and become a functioning member of society instead of returning to prison? How does one expect an
20 ex-felon to participate in our democracy if she can’t even vote?
This reality only oppresses the rural and urban poor even more -- sometimes to the point of homelessness. It would conclude that in order to better prevent homelessness and to lessen the plight of poverty, allowing people to get back to work would be essential. But how do you get ex- cons back to work? By reducing recidivism. And you reduce recidivism by implementing vocational education into prisons and by “banning the box.”
In the United States, people are routinely denied employment because of a criminal record -- regardless of its size and age. If a person was arrested for shoplifting at 13 years old, it makes no sense and is only purely Draconian to punish him for the rest of his life. Let’s urge our government to ban the box on employment applications and public assistance applications. That way, folks that work hard to reform themselves and become functioning members of society actually can.
Let’s lift them from that social underclass created by the new Jim Crow laws by allowing them a shot at a new, contributing life - - taking them from “criminal” to citizen. But let us also remember that even with a world without the “box” and it’s inherent employment discrimination, all is not fair in this war. As mentioned earlier, poor education is tightly knit to the state of poverty. The conditions which often place a person in prison are the same conditions that make them unmarketable to employers. There aren’t many educational and employment opportunities for citizens in blighted neighborhoods -- especially for someone that spent years out of the employment market. That is yet another reason why people return to prison.
Based on consistent research, The Institute for Higher Education Policy concludes that participation in educational programs during his/her time incarcerated reduces recidivism rates because it increases an
individual’s ability to successfully rejoin mainstream society upon release. It’s simple, if an individual’s résumé is subpar, he/she most likely won’t be hired. So to expand education opportunities and improve résumés, let’s expand funding for in-prison education programs -- re-instituting Pell Grant education eligibility for ex-convicts. By no means should one’s paid debt to society be burdensome for the rest of their life.
And one must understand that the goal of policy is to make a better society, one whereby people can achieve a greater quality of life. Yes, people can get some assistance from food pantries and other charities to lessen the burden of being poor. But understand that when that burden is perpetuated consistently by the criminal justice system, lack of social safety net, inadequate schools, and a institutionalized and oppressive control as talked about in this piece, the charities
that exist don’t scratch the surface of the problem. They offer help to those in a peculiar situation, but those people shouldn’t be in that situation in the first place.
Thus, the goal of public policy: to make a better society, one whereby people can achieve a greater quality of life.
21 And the goal of all human
beings should be to love! We should love folks like Samantha or the homeless man on the street corner because they just want to be seen as human rather than a problem.
In November of 2014, we did NOVouting for this very reason. We got back to our roots and gave care packages to homeless people in downtown Chicago. We wanted understand these folks and personalize their suffering. We were cold as they were. Yet we were able to hop on the warm train, to go back to our warm families, and eat warm food. Some people don’t have the opportunity to do that. Not only is the weather
As the outing ensued, I (Immanuel Sodipe) found myself more interested in getting information for this very piece and at that moment I realized, I’d forgotten about the poor person! I’d forgotten about Arturo already. Sometimes, it’s just so easy to indulge ourselves in our own self interest and forget why we’re doing the things we’re doing. Arturo called us angels but (in my mind at least) we rejected this. Was our deed noble? Perhaps. But we’re flawed because we’re human.
The biggest lesson from NOVouting is that we, as humans, are not perfect. We
the human community to explore
That community is not
just geographic, it’s global, it’s species-wide. We are all connected in a strive for something -- in a human condition. Some people suffer more than others, but we must allow the other’s suffering to speak. His or hers humanity must be recognized and then we must personalize it -- make it our own, so that we can strive to alleviate it. As long as humanity lasts, striving will last. As long as striving lasts, suffering will last. And as long as suffering will last, so will the strive to
alleviate it. That is what community love (philia)
cold (especially in Chicago), but so are the politicians that turn a blind eye to them (especially in Chicago).
We tried to fit our Nike’s into the
AND THE GOAL OF ALL HUMAN BEINGS
SHOULD BE TO LOVE!
is now and forever more. To be a citizen is to recognize this. To be a citizen is to never forget about the poor people!
tattered shoes of the vulnerable and marginalized. And while walking in them, we met a gentleman by the Chicago Cultural center that has found himself with zero job prospects and nowhere to go. His name was Arturo and he’d been left in this state of homelessness about three years ago. He told us that a car hit him while he was trying to aid an elderly woman. The accident left his right leg damaged to the point where he no longer allowed to drive trucks, the only source of his income. He keeps himself busy by volunteering in the Grant Park Rose Garden and doing his best to survive off whatever opportunities come his way. But he still manages to find hope in his faith in God and believe there is a plan for him. He is only human. He is stuck.
forsake others and give more acknowledgement to convenience -- or at least I (Eduardo Martinez & Immanuel Sodipe) do. The first step in helping others is accepting this.
Furthermore, we must take some lessons on humanity from some of the most humble and kind-hearted people. We witnessed a homeless lady giving away winter articles to other homeless people -- a very human action. She already had little but she knew that others had even less. She suffers with them and acts to alleviate that pain. How often do we -- more affluent people -- chose to not suffer with them? How often do we choose to not alleviate their pain? These are questions we owe to ourselves and other members of
###
N
22 FICTION
Nopi the Goblin
WRITTEN BY TYLER SNODELL
opi was watching ants in a patch of grass. They filed in and out of their new little anthill.
“Go! Go! Go! You can do it!”
Nopi was stupid. Even for a goblin. They other goblins would have noticed how stupid
he was if they ever bothered to pay attention to him. But goblins are only concerned with petty things. He had the ability to tell the difference between
a qwarf and a quaf -- essential information for goblinoids. Nopi was quite peculiar. What a strange little goblin! What a curious little goblin he was! When the butterflies actually came near his goblin camp, he could spend an entire afternoon following them on their aimless adventures. Perhaps he found these butterflies brave for venturing near goblins. They were usually snatched up in the sharp jaws, trapped between glass- shard like teeth. Nopi simply found an empty curiosity in such creatures. Little to his awareness, he was really quite like
23 them, flapping around wherever the winds would drag him.
One afternoon a butterfly fluttered by Nopi, its colorful wings distracted him from the ants. He waved to the little critter, “Hello! What is your name?” he said, delighted. The bug flew in circles, just out of Nopi’s reach, then landed on his hand. Nopi could not contain his excitement. It was the first time he got to look closely at the wings of a butterfly. “Who’s your mother and father? You have pretty face and Nopi must congratulate them!” Nopi waited for a response. “Why you not speak to Nopi? You are quite rude!” He attempted to poke the cheek of the butterfly’s wing-face to grab its attention, but it flew away.
“Wait for me! Nopi must look at your strange, large face!” The butterfly flew off into the woods, not far from the anthill. In his excitement Nopi crushed the hill chasing the butterfly. It flew from tree to tree, waiting for Nopi
to catch up and then off again to the next tree until they arrived at the mouth of a cave. The mouth of the cave was as wide as a hairy Hobglob. He could easily walk in with many of his tribe at the same time. The edges of the cave were
were gilded with an opaque blue as if it was painted with sky. Though the butterfly flew into the cave, Nopi was immediately intrigued by this shade of blue and decided to wander into the cave. Inside, dim lantern light flickered, making the blue all the more brilliant to ignorant little Nopi. Nopi found these lanterns fascinating. Thankfully for Nopi, he was more curious and less stupid than his fellow goblins who would have stared at the lanterns, sitting with their knees tucked in, until their eyes shrunk into their tiny skulls and they died without thought of food or drink. Nopi simply could not help but move from one lantern to the next, leading deeper into the strange cave. Winding through the cave’s corridors like a path to a great mansion, Nopi followed each new lantern, the blue of the cave becoming darker and darker, until he arrived at a chamber that was a rich sea- blue. Nopi would have stayed in this cave until some critter of sorts stole his attention, but the butterfly flew passed his nose and floated onto the shoulder of a goddess who was busy painting the far side of the chamber. Nopi did not know she was a goddess, for he
did not know many things, and what he did know was of very little importance.
Nopi walked up to the goddess and stood next to her, marveling at her task. The goddess turned to him and nearly smote him in surprise. “What are you doing here little creature?! Do you know where you are? I nearly killed you. Explain yourself!”
“Nopi asks what is it you are doing? So pri-tee.”
“I’m painting this cave to my liking. And yes, indeed it is pretty.” The goddess stared at Nopi as Nopi stared at the paint on the wall, watching it harden as the air sucked away its moisture. After what seemed like a long while to the goddess, the butterfly perched on her shoulder. Then it flew down and perched on Nopi’s shoulder. He stared into the eyes of its unfolded wings.
“What is your name? Nopi is angry you ignored him before, so, tell me now.” The
goddess was entirely unsure how to deal with such a creature. She was both charmed and appalled. She found something redeeming about him, that was different from most goblins
but she could not tell. Then she had a brilliant idea. “Nopi, you’re such a curious little fellow so I am giving you a gift.” Suddenly a scepter materialized out of her hand. It was a bit of a marvelous, crude
24 thing.
The staff had very little
other goblins looked up in wonder after they heard shiny- shiny. As they started to gather
Nopi would sit on the rickety, rotten bench and the goblins would stare -- more and
etchings upon it -- everywhere but the head which bore a brilliant ruby. The head of the staff was boxed shaped and entrapped a mirror on one end of it. Nopi’s eyes grew so large they looked as if they were going to burst. Never had Nopi set his eyes upon anything so magnificent. He instantly fell in love with its beauty.
Before the goddess handed it to Nopi, she warned him to be careful with it, to be cautious around others. However he could have done as he liked with it. Nopi held the staff to his face and turned the mirror side towards him. He had seen vague reflections of himself in glass and water, but never this clearly. Nopi did not have the words or the reflection enough to understand how he was feeling, but he found his own reflection most curious, in a disturbing sort of way. For the first time Nopi was becoming aware of himself. He might have reached an epiphany or died in the very spot, but the butterfly fluttered across his nose, and, immediately, Nopi followed it.
The butterfly wandered around, leading Nopi and his new present back to his village. It flew near a small group of goblins in the center of their village. These goblins found nothing better to do with their day than sit in the sun without saying very much, munching on critters as they crawled by. One caught the poor butterfly and munched on it carefully. This goblin happened to look up at Nopi as he chewed the poor thing. Tornugi was his name. And he marveled at Nopi’s scepter.
“Nopi, Tornugi must know where you got a shiny-shiny.” The
closer together around the scepter, Nopi had to raise the scepter up, and all the goblins in the village started to crowd around Nopi, like flies crowding dung. All stared at its brilliance, not knowing how to do anything but look at it.
Nopi became bored of this. His arms were getting tired, and he lowered his arms. The goblins began to become frantic, like they had lost all of their snacks. “You goblins is strange,” he said. Nopi started to find his way through the crowd to somewhere he wouldn’t be pestered by other goblins.
“Wait!” “Nopi!” “Shiny- shine!” some of them cried.
Tornugi found Nopi in the crowd and said, “Nopi! Wez goblins want to make Nopi king so wez can look at your shiny- shine. Wez will do what you like so wez can look at it all day. Nopi can sit higher than wez goblins. Please Nopi!” The other goblins did not complain about this, for they hardly listened, the plague of locked-up hysteria. Tornugi grabbed Nopi by the arm and dragged him to the highest structure in town, essentially a human bench. It was quite large to them, enough to recognize that they had placed someone above the rest of them.
The goblins stood and stared at Nopi’s scepter. He spun it around so that the face of the mirror occasionally faced the goblins and for a split second it was as if they had turned to stone. In their fixation with the foreign object, there was another level of fascination that elevated from unaware to mute. This went on for a few days.
more sitting down with each passing day -- becoming comfortable in their paralysis.
Occasionally Nopi would ask for some food, requiring persistence to grab one’s attention. Surprisingly, Nopi did notice that the little goblins seemed happier when the mirror end of the staff faced them. In its reflection they could all see themselves in it. Their vague expressions and parted lips curled like an iron bar tied in a knot. Smiles that suggested wicked images sprouting in their mind: images of themselves holding the scepter sitting on a throne cradled in an array of objects, taking these kinds of things from their neighbors. Masses of fellows sucked into their same seduction staring at the scepter. Their eyes looking like fish eyes that have been held over a fire, sinking further into their own eye sockets.
Nopi grew bored of doing nothing for days.
Tornugi sat directly in front of Nopi, perhaps the most cunning of fellow goblins but he was also the most captivated by it. He looked as if he had starred at this scepter for years, surviving by filter feeding. He looked as if he had dried out, a carcass of ash. Perhaps it was because he was most captivated by the scepter. Or maybe it was an accidental occurrence. Strangely, life was being renewed in his belly. The little butterfly he once gobbled up like a starving horse began to take life again and flutter its way up Tornugi’s belly and out of his mouth.
25 Nopi caught sight of the butterfly and immediately wanted to follow it, but he did not know what to do with the scepter. He was tired of it but he almost wanted to stay on his throne. The butterfly started flying over the other goblins in the direction of the path Nopi once took. Nopi had no desire to take away the pleasure the other goblins seemed to obtain from the scepter. He dug a hole into
Your poem here!
Submit a poem to be read, to the Lion Review. Your voice will spread!
his rotten throne large enough for the butt end of the crude scepter and placed the scepter into it. He looked at the goblins and noticed they did not have the ecstatic expression he once saw. He looked at the scepter and noticed the mirror end was facing him, not the other goblins. Nopi looked at it for a few seconds, made funny faces and stuck his tongue out, amused by his own reflection. He turned it back towards the other goblins. Their crooked smiles were back. Nopi, satisfied with his work, hopped off the throne and followed the butterfly into the forest, where, undoubtedly, he would confront the goddess again. Perhaps he would follow some other critter to far off places, being the stupid curious little goblin that he is.
-- http://thelionreview.com/get- published-in-the-lion-review/
###
26
!