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Clint Smith - "Place Matters"

Facebook:   / clintsmithiii   Twitter:   / clintsmithiii   - @ClintSmithIII Website: http://www.clintsmithiii.com - Clint Smith Place Matters By: Clint Smith As a child, my father would tell me stories of ancient Egyptian warriors travelling for endless days and nights across infinite desert planes showing signs of endurance and bravery I could only dream of emulating. He would tell me that upon their return home, these warriors would be welcomed with a feast worthy of their bravery on the battlefield. Years later as a teacher in Greater Washington D.C. I too find myself traversing a desert -- though not the one I envisioned. A food desert is as a poor urban area where residents cannot afford or are not given access to healthy food and grocery stores. Everyday at 2:45, I watch my students hop onto this leaking submarine of a school bus. Every block bringing them deeper into an ocean where the only fish they find are fried, where fruits and vegetables just can't be found because there are no grocery stores here. Just liquor stores and Popeye's. Dunkin Donuts and 7/11's. Children, born into a neighborhood that feels more pollution than solution. It is then I realize, I am not too far from the deserts I once dreamed of. Whether Anacostia or the Sahara it doesn't make much difference because to Whole Foods Southeast DC is no different than the Serengeti. To them, brown skinned boys like my students are nothing more than walking cacti, just a piece of the scenery the world has taught everyone to stay away from. Briana, literally has a landfill in her backyard so she has a hard time convincing herself that the world doesn't just think she's trash. Restaurants come and dump out the remains of food that she'll never be able to afford to eat three steps from her back door. Jose, eats fast food five days a week because his mother works three jobs to take care of six kids and only sees her son when she arrives home from work at the same time he is leaving for school. He has gotten so big that the excess fat bunkered beneath his skin puts added pressure on his joints. His knees are literally crumbling under the weight of this world. Olivia, watched her father shot two feet from her front porch. She wants nothing more than to go outside and play at the park after school but gun violence, has made a merry-go-round feel more like Russian roulette. So she doesn't go outside simply eats any processed food from the cabinet that will last long enough to prevent her from leaving the house too often. These are my students, my warriors, fighting a battle against an enemy they cannot clearly see. These kings and queens were meant to feast not to fester, but their zip code has already told them that their life expectancies are 30 years shorter than in the county seven miles away. I can see the faults of my own ancestry shaking in their eyes. Diabetes and high blood pressure run through the roots of my family tree. Heart disease is as much a part of my history as shackles and segregation. So, from my father's kidney transplant to Olivia's asthma these things are more than mere coincidence. Both grew up in places more accustomed to gunshots than gardens. So tell me that place doesn't matter— that the neighborhoods that are predominantly healthy aren't the one's that are predominantly wealthy. When you're not choosing between buying your medicine or your groceries health doesn't have to be a luxury. It doesn't have to be an abstract concept presented in academic journals and policy briefs. My students, overcome more everyday than I will in my lifetime. They are the roses that grew from the concrete— the budding oasis in the heart of the desert. Their lives are worth far more than the things this world has fed to them. © 2013 Clint Smith