I was thinking that it would be appropriate for me to tell you a little bit about myself since I really don’t have a profile explaining who I am to anyone.
I was born and raised here in Chicago and my first three years I lived all of five feet away from the church I would attend into my twenties. Somewhere in late 1978 into 1979 we moved into a neighborhood that was mostly Polish at the time and each house was a cookie cutter version of the next house. What kept the houses different were the different color bricks that were used in the construction of each house and the challenge of having the best looking lawn on the block so, it was constant watering of the lawn that kept people in community sometimes.
I remember looking out the window and watching my Father walking in knee deep snow and my mother held my hand and said “I feel so bad…” Years later I asked my Mother about that day and it so happen to be the Blizzard of 1979 that my Father walked a bit less than a mile in knee deep snow to buy some groceries. We were lucky to have a grocery store so close considering some neighborhoods south of us didn’t have grocery stores for at least 2.5 miles from them and couldn’t do much about it.
I attended the local elementary school with my Sisters and it was a particular type of building that was built before 1925 in an effort to figure out what was the best learning environment for children. This school building was a large four stories with interior ceilings at about 15 feet in height at least with massive concrete staircases that felt like you were climbing the side of a mountain. The demographics of the school was mostly White and Latino and at the time I didn’t see us as that I just saw us as people but that would soon change…
My parents owned a two flat brick building and they would usually rent to people they knew well to keep the home environment friendly and comfortable. Around the time of 1982, I believe, my aunt moved here from Colombia with her whole family and I remember being excited because it meant that we would have cousins to hang out with. Well what I didn’t understand then was that since I was the youngest no one really wanted to hang out with the little brat! So of course I would draw attention to myself with many silly things I would do but it has helped me be able to speak in front of hundreds of people…I’m just not throwing myself around the room anymore like when I was a kid.
Sometime during 1985, this would make me ten years old; I went to the store with my cousin that lived upstairs and he fit the description of a White boy because he is Blond, White in complexion, and I think his eyes are green and I’m the complete opposite of him. As we made our way back from the store we had just reached the corner of my block when a police officer pulled his car over and jumped out he pushed my cousin out of the way and grabbed me and began to cuss me out. “You wet-back go back to where you came from we don’t want your kind around here…” As this happened to me I could feel myself wanting to cry but a gut feeling told me not to so I stared at him. He became more angry and red in the face and I think he might have been foaming at the mouth as well. After he had said all of what he felt he had to say my cousin tried to get the cop off of me and was apologizing, I think, but if memory serves me well I believe I had said something to the effect of ‘well I know that you had to come further than I did.’ As an adult I remember that we had started to learn about the history of the Pilgrims and I can only guess that’s where that comes from. The walk home is a blur and I do remember my mom having to explain to me what those racial slurs meant because I had no idea. This event in my life has formed me to become who I am today I fight for those that are unable to fight for themselves.
There’s plenty more to the story but I wanted to give you some insight on where I’m coming from and why I’m doing this. Walking to Peace came about after many years of working in the community and traveling the country working on reducing the violence in our communities. I always speak about reducing and not stopping because the theory that we can stop violence completely is a false hope. The reason for it is that we would have to abolish poverty and racism all together to get to a point of stopping violence. When speaking about reducing violence sometimes people think that it is to say that if there’s a murder once every three months we should accept it and that is not the point. Violence will happen whether we have one police officer on every block or not because our society has so much hate in it. Our society has much to blame for the violence we allow into our communities and here’s an example; go online and watch ANY comedy roast that they do on celebrities and you’ll hear at least a dozen jokes about who is doing cocaine and everyone laughs about it. Someone somewhere will say ‘dude it’s a joke relax!’ and the problem is that NO, it is not a joke because it is true that Hollywood consumes a lot of the cocaine in this country and people are DYING because of it. I’m not referring to movies stars dying I’m referring to the millions of people in Latin America that suffer for the DEMAND that is created in the USA for cocaine. Not only people in Latin America but the poor people in our communities that are dying from the cocaine as well because they are trying to cope with their poverty that no one seems to care about.
It is a complicated issue but not hard to understand because the base of it is that people are dying from a drug that is in high demand in the USA and the federal government is unable to control the entry of this drug. People quickly turn to immigration as the issue and those of us that have done our research both in books and field work know that all the cocaine coming into the USA is NOT on the backs of immigrants and anyone that thinks otherwise is just not looking into the issue with a clear mind. People forget about Oliver North and the operation he ran bringing cocaine by the barrels on military planes and how that helped ignite the demand for this drug. Right before we moved out of the neighborhood I grew up in I got into it with a crack dealer and he let me know how he felt about me and I was happy to oblige him in return. The last day I walked out of that house I felt sad and lonely with a slight sense of relief. For a second there I thought that my life would be completely different and no matter what I try to do life brings me back to fighting for those that are unable to for themselves.
My project to reach out to people from all over this land is to find the Peace in not only me but to help people process theirs. We have been divided on so many levels and we all think that our cause is the most important one of them all and the truth of it is that each cause is THE MOST important one because there is so much that needs our attention. I say that I need to find the Peace in me because without it I am unable to continue my life of working for those in need. I still see the old me here and there but I rather see the future me and I want to see the future society that doesn’t discriminate anyone for who they are as a human being.
I need your help to accomplish this task and I’m horrible at asking for donations but here I am asking you, it doesn’t have to be a large amount so any amount is welcomed please visit my site www.walkingtopeace.com and you can read some more on the project and there’s a donation page and you can follow the instructions there. Also at the top of this Blog there’s also a donation link if you just want to skip the website altogether. I really need your help and look forward to developing this conversation with you and many others as I continue this Blog. Thank you!
Peace/AMOR
Gerardo
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