Building A Village 3.1
Be Who You Needed When You Were Younger
On my desk sits a wooden placard with the words “Be Who You Needed When You Were Younger” carved into it. While working with the school I mentioned in my last post, I was given this beautifully crafted piece while meeting with Manufacture Good. A nonprofit woodworking organization focused on helping young men bridge the intimidating gap between unemployment and meaningful employment. When I returned to my office, I sat it on my desk to remind me of my “WHY.” It inspires me every day, calling me to show up in the lives of others in ways people didn’t always show up for me. That’s not a slight on the people who did show up for me; neither is it an indictment on my family. There was a lot of love in the home and family I grew up in. But there was also a lot of brokenness. If you’ve read my writing, you know I don’t shy away from the beauty and brokenness of life. We are complex beings. Nothing about us is superficial or shallow. We are descendants of others. We have history. We have inherited both wealth and poverty. Some are bequeathed financial wealth, while others inherit spiritual wealth. Some have received a deep sense of love, acceptance, and belonging, and others received a poverty of not knowing who they are and why they are here. I’ve lived long enough to know how incredibly loved I am,
still
brokeness
persists.
Who I was When I was Younger
At a young age, I learned the art of being alone. I could spend hours by myself in a room playing with toys or video games. I had a vivid imagination that provided endless entertainment. I created vast worlds of mystery and adventure and named all of my toys, and every single one of them had an elaborate origin story of how they made it to the refuge of my room.
My room was a refuge.
It was a safe place for me at a time when I did not always feel safe. For the first eight years of my life, my family lived in a neighborhood called East Thomas. A once-thriving working-class neighborhood located just north of Downtown Birmingham. We lived in the same house where my mother and her eight siblings spent their childhood. Playing in the same dirt. Running the same streets. Eating the same fruit from my grandfather’s garden. Hearing the same trains as they sped through their once flourishing black community that turned into my now aging and deteriorating neighborhood. Breathing the same polluted air that for years has poisoned the bodies of its residents.
This neighborhood defined much of my childhood. I loved being outside, running around our spacious front and backyards, jumping off our large porch as I played with my sister, cousins, and our two childhood dogs, Treasure and Sasha. Picking fruit from my grandfather’s urban garden. The laughter and the honeysuckle of my grandmother’s house. Though the smell of the fresh-cut grass wreaked havoc on my asthma and allergies, and the thick southern air stifled my lungs. I LOVED being outside.
Memories from my childhood.
I also remember the day I first became aware that my idyllic neighborhood wasn’t as safe as I once thought.
There was a man. For the life of me, I can’t recall his name. But I remember him. He used to walk the streets of my neighborhood.
Talking.
Laughing.
Singing.
He was a jovial and fun man who always spoke when he saw me playing out in our front yard. Whenever I saw him coming, I would move out closer toward the street (a cardinal sin for most children living in communities like mine and who had a mother like the one I did) to say hello and talk for a while. As a child, it felt good to have an adult, not in my family, take an interest in me and ask about my day and how things were going in my little world.
I remember this day because the man acted differently than usual. While he was usually gregarious and outgoing, he seemed hyper and hurried that day. I didn’t think much of it since I knew plenty of adults whose moods seemed to change based on what was going on in their lives.
However, this interaction became more perilous by the moment. He started calling me his son and talking repetitively. He asked if I wanted to walk with him since he was in a hurry. I knew I couldn’t leave the yard, so I declined and said, “Maybe next time.” But he persisted and continued calling me his “son.” My internal alarm began going off, and I started backing away from the street, saying it was time for me to eat dinner. Insisting that we wouldn’t be gone long, he began to become visibly irritated, and at that moment, my mother came from inside the house to see me talking to him near the street.
SHE LOST IT.
She went full—fool, if you don’t get your crazy self from around my son this instant, I will run you out of here. Her exact words were, “Don’t call him your son; he is my son, and you have no right talking to my son. Get out of here, and don’t talk to him again.” My beautiful, light-skinned mother turned fire red as she lit into him while he quickly moved down the street closer to his home and further from ours. She then turned her fiery gaze on me and told me never to talk to that man again, and if I see him coming, come in the house.
This was the first time I recollect feeling unsafe in my neighborhood, but it wouldn’t be the last. Unfortunately, that feeling would persist and move from my neighborhood to inside of my home and even to my grandmother’s home, but that’s a different story for a different day.
While preparing to write this article, I contacted my mom to see if she remembered this event. She didn’t remember them specifically, but she did remember the man I spoke of. I also went back to my old address and walked down the streets. Everything felt so familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. The houses are much older, and many have fallen into disrepair. A working-class community ravaged by the elders who struggled so hard to own property, dying and leaving their homes to those who didn’t always appreciate their inheritance. The neighborhood has seen so many of the jobs it once boasted depart. Many who can afford to leave have already left. Leaving a shadow of the place I once called home. This is not meant to diminish those who still inhabit this community. As I drove through and spoke to my mother, we both had the same question, “how did this happen?” Who is ultimately responsible, and why have so many of our neighborhoods in Birmingham, Alabama, suffered a similar fate?
I digress.
My mother and her siblings grew up on those streets. They saw a lot and knew everyone. She said that man grew up in a home that wasn’t right (mid-century, southern colloquialism, for he probably endured some pretty terrible things and learned to cope with life through vice and viciousness). She called him menacing. He had a reputation.
What I’ve learned about men & women with a reputation is they can destroy our village and cause the people we desire to flourish to feel unsafe and harmed. Not every reputation is trustworthy; some arise from slander, lies, and envy. But some spread through the quiet and often overlooked misdeeds of the powerful preying on the weak. I once heard a parable (pictured below) of a lamb and a tiger. The tiger created an unsafe environment for the lamb, and those responsible for caring for the community only enabled the tiger.
This man was a tiger, and my mother ran him off, but I lost my sense of safety that day. I no longer felt safe in my front yard and lost my desire to spend hours outside playing. So, I moved inside. Shrinking my world to protect myself.
Too Many Kids and Adults Shrink Themselves to Survive in Unsafe Places
I recently began reading bell hook’s book belonging: a culture of place. As I think about place and the villages we build, I cannot escape the need to create places of freedom and safety. Honestly, I didn’t always have that when I was younger, so I strive to create those spaces for my family, the people I lead, and the young people and families we serve. Having a place of belonging matters. Feeling safe in those places matters more.
As I strive to “be who I needed when I was younger,” I aspire to lead and show up with courage, compassion, competence, and character. Even in my adult years, I’ve seen people afraid to confront tigers, so they let them run wild in families, homes, communities, businesses, boards, and government. These alpha predators intimidate and bully others through their power and prestige. They may not be the type of tiger from my childhood (though we have far too many of these people we must protect others from as leaders and members of our shared village), but they are the type who prey on others by forcing their will and their power onto others.
Who I need to be now that I’m older is someone who values mission more than the fear of man. To curate spaces where people come together with shared roles and common interests to create places where people thrive. Someone willing to “cage the bloody tiger.”
Building A Village is a series of posts about the challenges and rewards of pursuing a better today and a brighter tomorrow. Each post will be filled with stories of my experience and my thoughts on how we can see transformation in life and community. To become a paid subscriber, please click the link below.
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