What’s happening in your neighborhood?

H: Out here in Brooklyn on the edge of Bedford Stuyvesant, Ocean Hill and Bushwick it’s a mix of African-American, West Indian and Puerto Rican people with an addition of white residents from all over the world. The neighborhood has this unusual way of attracting creative people who just want to live normal lives. Often times famous and highly regarded by their peers outside the neighborhood, but in BedStuy they’re just people. 

COVID 19 was taken pretty seriously here. The stores and the people responded immediately. The neighborhood has a lot of city employees and essential workers too. People were sick and dying. I lost a close personal friend due to the virus that rocked the neighborhood. However, the murder of George Floyd brought on a level of activity this past week that has overshadowed the virus. 

People are furious.  However, I don’t see any signs of looting at all. Zero. 

This community struggled through stop and frisk so these murders always hit close to home. At times we can hear people marching and protesting. We hear the sirens, helicopters and gunshots. However neither my wife and I have participated in any of the protests. Our children are frightened. We’re trying to keep the world as close to normal as possible for them. Marching isn’t the only way to fight the power. 

Conversely, when i went to work out this morning at 6:30 am in the park a mile away from the house there were people already out getting drunk and high. Tattered women digging through garbage cans for plastic bottles because aluminum cans are no longer en vouge. People are struggling at the bottom in such a way that neither COVID 19 or police brutality is going to change their lives. They’ve lost all hope.

D: Madison is a suburban town in New Jersey about an hour train ride from Penn Station. It’s a college town which makes it a little more progressive than the Wall Street bedroom communities around it.

When Covid hit as well as the fear along with it, signs popped up on lawns. Don’t give up. We’re in this together. You’re good enough, this one struck me, seemingly aimed at those who were hit economically and the feelings of despair that come with it.

Lately though, the signs feel like they are pointing to a different issue. Don’t give up. We’re all in this together. Maybe. Today, driving through the neighboring town Chatham, there was a stretch where someone had taped Black Lives Matter posters on every telephone pole. Ten or so blocks, every pole. It was quite a statement in a lily white neighborhood. Maybe a little self-conscious, but something you might not have expected six months ago.

On Main Street, a few doors down from the ice cream place that everyone seems to be going to each night in their masks, is a store that has a bit of an installation of signs. There was a march of solidarity this weekend and this is where they ended up.

Howard and David are two friends talking (and listening).

We're going to see where the conversation take us.