I've recently talked a lot about honesty. I admitted a past lifestyle of deception for the purpose of getting money for drugs. I surprised myself with those admissions. Do you think it is easy to tell the world that I lied to my mother to get drugs? It was difficult enough to admit these things to myself.
Still, I decided to lengthen my stride and bare myself naked in front of the world. It was the right thing to do even it was a little self-traumatizing.
I had to do it, though. It was a necessary ingredient, a stepping stone if you will, to accomplish a goal. It was important to set a standard of honesty, a benchmark for everything I tell you about in the future.
I believed that this was the only way to help myself and others when I started my blog, Scribeskidrow. I had to grow into self honesty.
It did not happen overnight. I laid the bricks down one by one to form stepping stones that would help me get from one truth to another. And even then I never made a declaration on my blog that my former life of smoking cocaine equaled mental illness. I did not make that declaration on my blog until after I made it to you, the Labeez readers.
I did so because I had to get straight before I could begin to talk about about the bigger City of Angels — and why its Skid Row is the way that it is.
Some people call Skid Row a quarantined zone where anyone can do drugs with impunity as long as they stay within its boundaries. Others say Skid Row is the result of a long-standing containment policy for the homeless and the drug addicted, a zone tacitly sanctioned by the government. That gives credence to the notion among many that a longstanding conspiracy of benign neglect and active profiteering is alive and well in the corridors of government.
Yes, the decision to send court ordered drug offenders with longstanding drug issues to the streets of Skid Row begs some questions. Among them are queries about the fairness of the criminal justice system. It is a business, after all — and business is booming. Service vendors are making handsome incomes from the endless needs of inmutes. There's alot to this business, too, including questions that extend into the local political establishment.
We'll get to those in future columns. First, though, we must look at certain truths that cannot be avoided. It is imperative that we look at our contribution to these issues. What do we do to help create this Skid Row condition? What do we do to create Skid Row conditions across the communities of America? The government and non-profit organizations are often seen as the driving forces when it comes to the public's role in Skid Row. Their roles and agendas also should be questioned. But even they are second in importance to recognizing and acknowledging our won contributions — the things that each of us do or don't do, the actions and decisions not to act that lead to the aggregate humanity known as Skid Row.
A failure to account for ouselves will discounts the value of truth. It will erase any chance of change in Skid Row. It will cancel out the credibility of any questions, any attempts at oversight of government agencies, non-profit social-service providers, and other Skid Row stake holders.
Let us make no mistake about it: There are many stakeholders in Skid Row.
We'll begin looking at some of them next week.
Walter Melton is a writer for the L.A. Garment & Citizen.
Visit Walter Melton's blog at www.scribeskidrow.blogspot.com.
Photo from Wikimedia Commons
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