YotC, stereotypes, and barriers...

My experience at Mother Seton with Kelsey relates to many of the things we’ve been talking about in class. The most obvious connection is to The Wire. Kelsey doesn’t exactly attend an Inner City Baltimore School, but she does go to school in the Inner City. From what I’ve heard in class, David Simon’s talk has many Jesuit themes about helping others and why we should connect with these people. While I didn’t go to the David Simon Lecture, I will discuss some of the reasons why I think it is important to be connected to them.

When I think of Baltimore, I think “dangerous.” It’s a stereotype I think a lot of Loyola students have. We all know the “nice side” versus the “bad side” and where you shouldn’t wander by yourself. Whether we mean to or not, we are biased against the African Americans in Baltimore. And it makes sense to be, because we are on our guard and stay on the safe side “just in case.” The great thing about Year of the City, is that we are being forced to interact with these people. All the students at MSA are children of the people we feel we need to fear. If we saw their parents on the street, many of us would think “African American in Baltimore, stay away.” However, hanging out with these kids is one of my favorite parts of my week. Tutoring Kelsey really makes me feel like I am making a difference in one soul in Baltimore.

Kelsey has an attitude like the student in “Did I Miss Anything?” She isn’t too keen on going to school, and seems to feel like she always has better things to do. After school with her, she tells me about the subjects she doesn’t like and why, and how she loves to play her PSP and her new Wii that she got from Santa. I guess you could consider her a normal kid. She is smart, but just in memorization terms, “putting it in your own words” is really difficult for her, because she doesn’t understand what she “knows.” In “Did I Miss Anything?” the students seems to have a nonchalant attitude about school, like Kelsey does. It is hard for you to care about something that you feel is useless. However, like the teacher in the poem, it is extremely difficult for me to see her so discouraged and apathetic when she is so intelligent. I try my best to make her love it, by showing her how everything she learns can relate to her if she really understands it. In this way, I am hoping that she will stay in school and not become the stereotypical Baltimorean that we are so afraid of.

By tutoring Kelsey at MSA every week, I am hoping to change a life. It is a little extreme, but this is what Year of the City is all about. It’s goal, as I see it, is to prove to us that we can make a difference. Places like Baltimore should not be seen as intimidating, they should be seen as an opportunity. This is our chance to share our talents and our faith and our love with the people who need it the most. There doesn’t have to be a good side and a bad side to Baltimore. It is a barrier that we mean to tear down through Year of the City. It is an imaginary barrier, and an unnecessary one. If I can stop Kelsey from becoming a gang member, then who is to say our whole college can’t help a few schools in the same ways? There are so many different opportunities like this one. Year of the City dares you to accept the challenge. I started volunteering because it was a requirement for one of my classes, and now I am already wondering what to do with myself when Kelsey graduates next year!