Cityhall meets another teen-involved south-side shooting with a symphony of crickets. I don’t really care, anymore, who sits in elected chairs anymore. They’re all the same. Money. Power. Extension of self. Those are the three guiding principles of our local elected officials. What makes it all so much worse to me is that when kids and their families talk with me, I have nothing to offer them. We don’t have real economic opportunities for our south-side kids; all we have our progressive words about homeless people that translate into meth-using transients invading our south side parks.
I know a real homeless family whose kids attend sought side schools. They work hard, try their best to provide for the children. But the trauma that comes with poverty and violence pervades the kids and I can feel the dark sadness they emanate whenever I see them. If Santa Fe had a real economy that didn’t monetize native and Spanish history, there could be a chance for this family. Rather, the current batch of thieves running city hall would rather look for ways to water down our history and make it more palatable to the white consumer who is so riddled with guilt just for being alive that they have to piss their pity-filled agendas onto our culture.
Santa Fe’s south-side is decaying into a depressive and violent place where basic safety is now an issue. Pretty much all the schools in the area were on lockdown while bullets flew around apartments and homes. Yet, the Mayor and the Cityhall goons were touting courts for a game that our south-side kids will never play. They don’t play games in the south-side, the learn to use guns and plan their revenge against their perceived enemies. What they don’t know and what they’ll never know is that their real enemy is inside them.
Power brokers have, over the years, figured out that if they keep poor people poor, they’ll destroy themselves. It’s a self-fixing problem for the rich: Teach poor people that survival is the only mode of life and that’s all they’ll do. They won’t prosper or even dream of a bigger life. They’ll celebrate 15 year old girls having babies and praise the gift of life. But deep down, our south-side kids don’t see life as a gift, they see it as a curse that they must trudge through until they find the bullet labeled with their name.
Santa Fe: We need to take care of each other. No one is coming to save us, especially if we live on the south-side.
