James Baldwin - The Artist’s Struggle for Integrity

The Struggle, New York 1963

YouTube comment (not my own):

Baldwin goes on to say a bit more after this cuts off:
“It is spectacular for example, to have been forced ultimately to bring in the entire whatever-it-was… militia, US marshals - to get James Meredith into school, and from a certain point of view, which I do not at all share, I can see that one could say that no other country would have done it. It’s escaped everybody’s notice that no other country would have had to. It is easy to admire the sit-in students in the South, and nothing is more delightful than to talk to Martin Luther King, whom I very much admire. But it is too easy to admire a Christian minister, especially if you take no responsibility for what’s happening to him or to those people that he tries to represent. It is hard to begin to understand that the drift in American life towards chaos is masked by all these smiling faces and all these do-good efforts.”  

Maybe, in some way

It’s not Black and White

But Gray, 

And In fact, not so dull, 

But yellow, green, orange, and purple

All mixed in a way 

That now I realize,

Is still Gray

So I did find a room in Inwood. I have 3 room mates and they’re chill. We spend some times drinking watching a movie, playing video games, card games, karaoke, and dancing. My room is spacious enough to share with someone (which I do). It isn’t terrible and rent is decent. Inwood is great because of how close in proximity I am to my family. It’s also quite Dominican/ Hispanic. Therefore, I hear the same songs I’ve heard since high school and smell the same food from growing up (more or less). In regard to gentrification, I feel this area is the least gentrifying foot print I can do. Which, if you read earlier posts, you’ll know this was important to me. I’m not really sure how long I’ll be here but for the moment I’m having fun and enjoying my independence. Viva la Vida!