A neighborhood in pictures

I applaud all that Mr. Marsalis and Ms. Warlow are doing in this community and pray that there will be others who will come along to help them achieve their goal. I don't live in the city but alot of my friends do, and is a shame that the city won't provide for such acitivities. I say "won't and not "can't" because it sure isn't a problem to build a new building or give someone a raise in office. So, it's not like the money isn't there. They just need to use it more wisely.

Ellis Marisallis doesn't look to happy in that photo. He had a look I use to have when I lived on the "mean" Southside of Chicago. It's a look of bewilderment, of the unknown, anticipatory, on edge! I'm sure, Mr. Marisallis, stays on because of his inner committement and belief and strong values that sees the "universal" good in Black Culture, and Black people. However, my hope would be that he would move and take his family along with him. He is prominent enough to do that. He has "name" recognition. Unfortunately, and you can define the anomaly in the Black communities anyway you want, but it has gotten to the point where living in Black communities is no different than being locked in a Prison. I'm Black. I said it. The "shot-caller's" are the uneducated gang-bangers and gang leaders in the neighborhoods; no one respects the Black Clergy but, in a large part, Black females. The street raises the young people. It's a mess.

"Waiting" for their future to happen? "Waiting" for a truck to drive up and hire them? Is that how people usually get jobs?

I agree with Mr. Marsallis. One could take a series of pictures that make BE look like a crime zone. One could also take a series of pictures in BE that make it look like a pristine prime real estate area. The dichotomy of Belair-Edison is intriguing to say the least. I moved here 3 years ago and still love my neighborhood.

I imagine for some residence, it is hard to look passed trying to pay the mortgage/rent, the utilities, put food on the table, and work 3 jobs just to get by. For them, there may not be time to make the lawn look pretty, make sure their kids are in school, be home for their kids after school. It's easy to see why we have some of our problems.

Keisha wrote:

"Waiting" for their future to happen? "Waiting" for a truck to drive up and hire them? Is that how people usually get jobs?

Yes, actually. It's common practive here in Baltimore and Washington DC for the illegal immigrant population to get employment using this method.

Baltimore City is a dirty ghetto. Many of the people that live there don't give a damn about their neighborhoods. The majority of the young people are sitting around not waiting for their future, they think society owes them something. They do not seem to aspire to be anything and are satisfied with their meger lives. You see people getting killed each day and alot of them are killed in the early morning hours. I've been raised to think "nothing good goes on after midnight". Not once have I seem in the paper where someone was actually walking home for a job and was killed. The black on black crime will continue because people have no respect for human life.

It is always difficult for an artist to respond to a story written about their work especially when it’s not bad. However I feel almost compelled to do so given the time and effort and scale of the work. As an artist I am aware that art takes on a life of its own after it is delivered into the public marketplace and there is no controlling the winds that will take it every which way. Sometimes, when a wind takes it in a direction that is diametrically opposed to its purpose, an artist, I think, may exercise an opportunity to enlighten. I will take such opportunity. First and foremost, I was under the assumption that an art critic would take a tough and honest look at the work. They would ask the question, why am I looking at this, what relevance does it have to the community, city, state, country, and world. What is it saying? What is it trying to say? Do I like it? If so why? Do I dislike it? If so why? Is it great art? Is it crap? Where does this work fit into our ever evolving universe? This article unfortunately made no such attempt. Instead it was a feature puff piece at best which included social commentary by someone unrelated to the exhibit, or subject, who no doubt has not seen the exhibit nor or they likely to see it. When the book, from which the exhibit derives, was published 3 years ago, The Sun did a similar article. I see now no reason to have done it again. This is all disheartening to me.

Much of the story being told about the exhibit falls into an unfortunate category of what I like to call the “Poor Negro Ghetto Tome”. It started no doubt during the English abolitionist movement and its first stop in America was likely Uncle Tom’s cabin. While here it continued in such as Manchild in the Promiseland, A Raisin in the Sun, Elvis’“in the Ghetto”, Stevie Wonders – living just enough for the city, Boyz in the Hood, and on and on with its last stop being newly released Runaway Love by Ludacris. There is a certain mythological nonsense about this well worn tale (and this article). It made it appear as if this exhibit was a continuation of that – well it’s not. It is in fact the exact opposite of that. With poems such as sparrow, guppies, mylar balloons, general lee’s black army, and white noise; the complexities of the community in which I live are on full display. This article centers on this idea of the poor downtrodden negro ghetto with me trying to do good in it,(Along w/ Mary Warlow? Huh?). Your article is in part about darkness; my exhibit is about light, beauty, mystery and chance. How “we” live here is no different than how everyone else lives everywhere else. Darkness rules, I suppose.

By not reviewing the work and its merits, or lack thereof, you left the door wide open for the continuation of the residue of confederacies perpetuation of the inferiority of black people, which is shared by both liberal and conservative white people, and the ever present reality that the only way black people can only be whole and peaceful is under the tutelage of civilized white people.(See comments attached to story as evidence). My book and the current exhibit addresses these exact ideas and dilemmas but we never got there. What we got was poor black people, poor black kids, nothing to do, where’s the family, we’re all trying to help but… on and on and on. We even got my favorite absolution of civil responsibility “black on black” crime in those same comments. I am waiting one day for the article on Mexican on Mexican crime or white on white crime or maybe asian on asian crime, or is it that no other race or non-dominant culture commits crime. Maybe so, I guess it’s just us blacks.
And for those of you who are wondering why I look that way is because I was placed directly in the sun for the shot. I stay where I live because it’s my home. The dominant culture direct and indirect media influences has so poisoned the reality of black neighborhoods that even the people who live here believe it and its only when I say what they blurt out back to them do they realize how foolish it sounds. I must stop now because everything that will follow may be laced with profanity. We are living in an insane time and I am determined not to contribute to the insanity that so many seem to be all to willing to donate their time to.