In Philadelphia, looking for my ray gun
May 18, 2007 at 4:56 am gvblog 1 comment
Philly is a fascinating city for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is its inhabitants, the various communities that make up its whole. I rode into the city from the North, which meant that I traveled through derelict neighborhoods full of abandoned factories and car repair joints. Can someone tell me why, when neighborhoods turn seedy, they’re suddenly populated exclusively with car repair places? Are there really that many cars?
In the city, I talked to people from an array of organizations and perspectives – its interesting that it was probably the least I planned in advance who I was going to talk to yet I ended up connecting with really interesting people. Those connections and a conversation with Vince and Diane, old family friends and my hosts on Monday night, got me thinking about the limitations of my trip.
Vince was asking me how I reached out to people, and I explained that usually I send some emails out to people I know that have connections in the area, and use my network of people I know to connect me with people in a particular city. I also spend some time googling around trying to see if I can find people who may not be connected to my network. We talked a little about the people that they knew and how it was unfortunate that we hadn’t talked earlier so that they could have connected me to thier networks also. The conversation made me realize that it’s important to clarify for myself what the limitations are of this trip, and the ways I have chosen to organize it. Or maybe limitations is a bad word – I think I would rather say parameters, the space I have chosen to occupy, the places I have chosen to go.
1. The geographic parameter. A lot of my route is random and constrained by three events – the Choice USA Gala on May 23rd, the Sistersong Conference May 31-June 2nd in Chicago, and a family vacation that starts in LA on August 2nd. There are tons of places I’d love to go, events I’d like to attend, and people I’d like to meet- The US Social Forum in Atlanta, Ina May Gaskin and other midwives at the Farm in Tennessee, the AASECT Conference – but the three events previously mentioned are the most important to me, so everything else is getting scheduled around them. I can only bike so far in a day.
2. The temporal parameter. I am not, nor do I want to, going to meet everyone working in reproductive health and sexuality education in the cities I visit. There’s a limit to how long I want to stay in each city, usually 2-3 days, and if I were to meet with everyone that I hear about, I would be in each place forever. I also think that some amount of fatigue would set in, and I really enjoy getting fresh perspectives and a chance to talk about important issues with different people. I would hate for it to feel like work.
3. The relational parameter. I only know people are out there if they are either connected to my network, accessible on the internet, or written about in some form of media that I read or observe. I’ve struggled with this, since one intention of my trip is to reach out and hear from people who have traditionally been marginalized from the reproductive rights movement. But because those people are often not connected, intentionally or not, with mainstream organizations, I often don’t hear about their work. This goes back to the length of stay parameter – if I stayed in each city for weeks instead of days, I’m sure I would meet fascinating people who are doing really interesting work. Because I’ve established a shorter time period for each stay, I’m potentially missing out on some great conversations.
4. The fun parameter. Firstly and most important, I am on this trip to have fun. To enjoy myself and revel in parts of the world I’ve never seen before, in the existence of entirely new people and ways of thinking. Each conversation, each hill I climb, each new view is as important to me as anything that I end up producing at the end of the trip. I’m in this for the joy of it, and I hope that by reading this, you’re soaking up a little of it, or at least thinking about some things you haven’t thought about in quite that way before.
I know that no matter what I’ll be glad to have this record to look back on, glad to have captured my thoughts as they happen. Unfortunately, all this talk about parameters has been incidental to my original intention of writing reflections on my time in Philadelphia, on child rearing, individualism vs. autonomy, spirituality and sexuality, and what being an advocate really means.
I’m off tomorrow for Baltimore, and when I get there I’ll have intellectually stimulating and lavishly descriptive reflections.
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King Benny | May 18, 2007 at 9:42 pm
Hi Nora,
I think industrial sections of town are typically inhabitated by low income people. Not to stereotype, but a lot of those people are immigrants and criminals. Both groups have long histories of being mechanics for several reasons. 1) Body work and engines are the same regardless of what language you speak; 2) There is a lot of room for “negotiating” and under the table commerce in that type of business; 3) Those with little scruples flourish in that industry; 4) After one gets out of the clink(esp. if you have served for a felony), its hard to find a good paying job. Mechanics can make $20-30/hour and those skills can be passed down through the generations(much like the violence that lays the fertile soil for criminality, coincidence?). 5) Towns like Pittsburg, Philly, Detroit, Akron, etc. were all involved with the auto industry decades ago. People who used to work in the factories who had low education and a family history of working in factories had to find something else to do. They just switched to a different part of the auto industry.
XOXO
Benny