Item: 37 cents in change
This is a bad story. As background, it refers to the shooting of Agustin Contreras last week in a gang-related fight at Venice High School. Even though Contreras himself was not involved in a gang, he was defending his brother Alejo, and now he is dead.
I was driving yesterday and at one corner noticed a sign that said something about Agustin Contreras and a car wash. Then, at the next intersection, high school girls stood in the middle of the road with buckets. "Car wash?" they asked. "Donation?"
It is humiliating to relate that I had no cash with me, except some random nickels and pennies at the bottom of my purse, which seemed insulting to dig out and give to them, but maybe that would have been better than just sort of waving them off and driving on, wondering if what they thought of me was what I actually am.
It was, in fact, completely and utterly true that if I had had money with me, I would have given them some, not to mention that my car rather obviously needed to be washed. I would have done this not because handing over a contribution would have solved anything, but this is the kind of goodwill gesture you make as part of a community. It was just my rotten luck that I had nothing to give them. In an interesting twist to the story, I had just put all the cash I had into the offering at church. Make of that what you will. Anyway, I felt cowardly, and lower than low.
15-year-old girls are more brave than I am. These girls have no problem standing on the street and asking for help for one of their own families.
There's a whole discussion about white guilt and whether it's productive or politically correct or even warranted. Every so often a person gets tired of feeling guilty. Such an incident takes on the kind of proportions that make me feel horrible all day precisely because the entire socioeconomic situation seems somehow to be my fault. I was, in fact, bitterly angry for the rest of the day, but the running theme in it wasn't that I was tired of feeling guilty. Fundamentally, I'm tired of it being so easy to run into tragedy so often, of it having to happen at all.
I was driving yesterday and at one corner noticed a sign that said something about Agustin Contreras and a car wash. Then, at the next intersection, high school girls stood in the middle of the road with buckets. "Car wash?" they asked. "Donation?"
It is humiliating to relate that I had no cash with me, except some random nickels and pennies at the bottom of my purse, which seemed insulting to dig out and give to them, but maybe that would have been better than just sort of waving them off and driving on, wondering if what they thought of me was what I actually am.
It was, in fact, completely and utterly true that if I had had money with me, I would have given them some, not to mention that my car rather obviously needed to be washed. I would have done this not because handing over a contribution would have solved anything, but this is the kind of goodwill gesture you make as part of a community. It was just my rotten luck that I had nothing to give them. In an interesting twist to the story, I had just put all the cash I had into the offering at church. Make of that what you will. Anyway, I felt cowardly, and lower than low.
15-year-old girls are more brave than I am. These girls have no problem standing on the street and asking for help for one of their own families.
There's a whole discussion about white guilt and whether it's productive or politically correct or even warranted. Every so often a person gets tired of feeling guilty. Such an incident takes on the kind of proportions that make me feel horrible all day precisely because the entire socioeconomic situation seems somehow to be my fault. I was, in fact, bitterly angry for the rest of the day, but the running theme in it wasn't that I was tired of feeling guilty. Fundamentally, I'm tired of it being so easy to run into tragedy so often, of it having to happen at all.
posted by Karen at 7:10 PM
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