" Forgive me for always being unrestrained in my pursuit of freedom,
I will also be afraid of falling down (from this dream) one day."
— Beyond, “Vast Sky Wide Ocean”
Dear X:
There has been some time since we last met. How are you recently? Chicago is cold in winter! It’s probably not as cold as Minneapolis but is still cold regardless. What could be more miserable than having a summer person live in the North for over five years? I hope you don’t have to experience this pain.
X, you may know me as a researcher interested in criminal justice and education but did I ever tell you I am a The Great Gatsby fan? Having lived in the twin cities for the past few years, I have regarded myself as a Minnesotan (even if I shouldn’t). This weird sense of belonging fostered me to develop an affection for Fitzgerald as well because he was born in St.Paul. “See, I breathed in the same air as the author of The Great Gatsby”, this is what I like to tell my friends. “No wonder he could write a masterpiece like that and become the symbol for the Jazz Age!”, I always added. In the book, if there is one quote that I personally very relate to, it is this one from the father of the main character Nick Carraway. It goes, “Whenever you feel like criticizing any one…just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”
X, we lived in a world full of inequalities, and we often take our ‘privilege’ for granted. For many people, the socioeconomic status that they’ve been carrying since born is a stigma that will haunt them throughout their lives. It wasn’t their choice but a fact they had to endure that they were raised in a family where parents earn low incomes and grew up in a neighborhood where drug dealing, gang violence, and the sound of shooting are as common as breathing, drinking, and eating. For them, their low socioeconomic status is like a poison that causes them to live in poverty, pushes them to commit crimes, and is the reason for all their tragedies. In a society with pervasive social inequalities and restricted upward social mobility, these people are the majority in the population but minorities in social and political power. They love to camouflage themselves with the ‘background color’ wherever they go and play the invisible game so that they can vanish in the air. Big events never happen to them, and their names are never in the newspapers. People believe that they don’t have stories and that their stories are not interesting. Sometimes I feel we, the rest, are just like moths that fly to the flame of money and power and are always fond of brightness and disgust darkness.
But they are also fleshed human beings whose daily lives, if being written into novels, will be on the selling chart.
X, did I ever tell you the story of Jay? I met him when I was a volunteer committing to restorative justice works. That was a Thursday afternoon when the day hadn’t turned very cold and snow hadn’t covered every inch of the beautiful ground of Minnesota. Jay is a middle-aged Black man who appeared to be introverted. I first saw him in the church where the restorative conference was held, and he was late. We waited for him for 10 minutes, and this was rare. He was also silent. Ever since he came to the room, he didn’t say a word, and when we asked him to recite the incident, he answered with only “Yes” and “No”. For the whole time, his head was down to his chest, and everyone in the group could see he was unhappy. It was like there was a door in his heart that blocked him from us.
Jay was charged with petty theft, because of which he came to our conference hoping to get his record expunged. This was surely an inglorious thing, so I guessed this was why he had been so quiet. In the middle of the discussion, he suddenly became irritated when we asked him how he planned to remand the fissure between him and his community. He said, I won’t. I feel guilty for the person whose property was stolen by me because she was innocent. But not other people. He said loudly. I noticed his eyes were wet. He was about to cry. The conference facilitator gave him some napkins, and after his emotion was stabilized, we asked him what happened. He told us the following story.
He said he used to be an outgoing person, but an event transformed him and the trauma was still alive. The incident happened half a year ago when his White female friend who lived in another state came to visit him. He was certainly happy, so they decided to visit the park in the city. However, while he was driving, an accident was coming. His car was hit by another vehicle coming from nowhere, and his friend was instantly in coma (he was hurt too). While he took his friend home from the hospital days later, all the people in his neighborhood looked at him with strange eyes as if it was he who plotted the incident. Some people even whispered that he did it on purpose because he was Black, and they believed Black people were born to be criminals. Jay lived in a politically conservative suburb where most residents were Whites and there weren’t a lot of Black people. Eventually, all the sinister words drove his mental state to a breaking point, and he was seriously traumatized, dreaming nightmares night after night. He blamed himself for the incident and thought he was a criminal. He began to not trust people and closed himself.
When Jay finished talking, he said he felt much better now. He then raised his head, looked at us with his dry eyes, and asked, “Could I trust you guys now?” At one moment, I didn’t know how to respond because I couldn’t share his feeling since as an Asian, I never had his experience. I could only tell him that we were there to help him.
X, these people like Jay, whom we often ignored, probably know more about the feelings of pain and joy than we are. They are ordinary people but their stories are not ordinary. They are people who were hurt by society, who sacrificed themselves for their families, and who despite living the toughest life, still gave the most love to their children and friends. X, are we really different from them? Human emotions are never connected, and it’s such a hard thing for us to stand in others' shoes. However, I really think stories have the power to change. This is why we need stories, stories of the people at the bottom.
X, among these stories I heard, there were kids who stayed in jail cells and handcuffed, women who were stopped by police officers three times in the same day while driving through a neighborhood where she worked, and young students from Turkey who were dissatisfied with the Mayor’s crime-control efforts in the term. Let me tell you another one next time.