Neighborhood heroes
The breaking news that Charlie Ramsey (aka “Charlie Rescue”) of Cleveland, Ohio, had been arrested previously on domestic violence charges is not a story of scandal. It reads to me like more of a story of almost-perfectly mirrored redemption.---
What’s clear about the case of the three imprisoned and abused girls freed from the basement of a home in Cleveland this week is that, for years, there was little to no active city policing going on in this working-class neighborhood in which the average household income is less than $24,000. 9-1-1 calls don’t get investigated. Missing girls get labeled as simply “runaways.” Meanwhile, missing daughters of the affluent become national celebrities. It’s not even race, it’s economic class. Two Americas. The lives of some people in this country-- and in this world-- simply mean more than others to authorities and to the media.
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The federal interstate highway system destroyed our cities. Every city has neighborhoods like this one in Cleveland—filled with hard-working people, but mired in poverty and crime and regarded with utter indifference by those living outside of it. Drive around in any one of these neighborhoods tomorrow and make a mental note of all the concrete monuments to America’s cold efficiency that mark its borders.
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I was going to see Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby this weekend but I think I'll wait instead for Andrew Lloyd Webber's version of A Farewell to Arms.
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News stories like this one fill me with so much positive energy I want to go outside and just run for miles.
posted by CM @ 6:59 AM
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