"Her heart was filled with laughter when she saw those city lights.
She said the prettiest place on earth is Baltimore at night."
~Streets of Baltimore
I don't exactly know how to feel today. I am 7,200 miles from home. And today I found one of the guys who works in ICT looking up Baltimore on Wikipedia. It surprised me. Even more so than waking up at 3:15 am this morning and seeing that a state of emergency had been declared and the National Guard deployed to Baltimore City. What is going on in my hometown? My Nursing School closed campus early yesterday. A curfew for all is going into effect tonight. Cars were smashed, a CVS looted and burned, restaurant windows smashed, people attending a baseball game at our beloved Camden Yards were asked to remain inside the stadium after the game ended because of public safety concerns. Something tells me that my father is going to stay out of the office this week. For the first time ever, I don't like the idea of him walking a mile along the waterfront from where he parks his car to his downtown office.
The majority of those who read this are located in the U.S. so unless you live under a rock, you know what I'm referring to. For those of you who do not know, a black youth died last week in police custody. My understanding is that he most likely (the medical examiner autopsy results have not been released as far as I know) suffered from a back injury while in custody, was transferred to one of the best hospitals on the East Coast but slipped into a coma and died a week later. I am almost certain I know the unit he was taken to at R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center. I can picture it vividly in my mind because I trained there in my final semester of nursing school. One of my fellow classmates probably still works there.
Violence, drugs, and murder are nothing new to Baltimore. I mean, we have a neighborhood that is nicknamed Bodymore and routinely makes the most dangerous neighborhoods or most dangerous cities in the US lists. But this weird, quirky city is home. I grew up in Baltimore County, which is very different than inner city Baltimore. I am a privileged, white woman. So yes, I have had a multitude of opportunities that others haven't and so maybe I don't even have a right to say anything about the situation. I am not going to sit here and even remotely pretend that I have any clue what the protesters and rioters are feeling. I simply cannot identify with a black male in inner city Baltimore no matter what I try.
However (an maybe this is naïve of me to say), my parents raised me to treat others as I would like to be treated, to give back to the community, and always remember there are those less fortunate that I in this world, and not just half a world away in Africa, but 30 miles down a very familiar interstate. Thanks to my parents as well as Catholic Schooling it was a requirement for me to complete a certain amount of community service in order to receive my high school diploma. I volunteered at Camp Umoja, a camp for inner city children run by my ever enthusiastic cross country coach at my high school. It was my first stab at teaching, which I never thought I'd be using now (and it was hard). My one sister had a tendency to lock her keys in our trusty Saturn, the inner city children she taught more than once broke into the car for her to retrieve them. She usually was with the children under 10 years old. I can't imagine what their life was that at younger than 10 they could break into a car.
It's very strange to be so far away and only getting snippets of news and Facebook posts. I have complete faith that some of the news outlets aren't showing the thousands who peacefully protested thus skewing the world's view of Baltimore. I am embarrassed that a Rwandan colleague was so intrigued by this news that he was researching the city I call home. I just have no idea what to feel about the situation. I wish that people could just calm down and be rational sometimes (easier said than done, I know). It worries me to see how the world is changing, but particularly America and our politics. Over 4,000 innocent people have lost their lives in Nepal and yet my Facebook feed, news trending, and news media alerts are about Baltimore and I just received one about the Tony Award nominations.
I don't know who would ever want to become a police officer in the United States today. I am not about to say that every police officer out there is noble and perfect, because they are human just like you and me, and no one is perfect. However, it's not just the military that make sacrifices, but police officers too. Anyone who makes the decision to put on a uniform to serve others deserves acknowledgment of the daily sacrifice they and their families make.
It saddens me that this will go down in Baltimore's history forever and that when I mention I am from Baltimore this will be the first thing people will associate with it for awhile.
"I love you Baltimore. Every day's like an open door, every night is a fantasy, every sound's like a symphony. And I promise Baltimore that some day when I take to the floor the world's gonna wake up and see Baltimore and me."
~Hairspray
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