2002-11-20 - 4:29 p.m.

It's the safety. It's the violence. South LA is in the middle of an all-out gang war and it started a block away from where I work when one of the teenagers at the school where I work was killed. The next week, 3 kids were shot (not killed) right in front of the school. Over the weekend 13 people were killed. Last night 7 were shot in the neighborhood that's within a mile radius of this school.

It's mostly gang-related - meaning that the targets are teenagers and young adults in the neighborhood who look like they don't belong, or like they belong too well to the neighborhood. So I'm not a target. But it's a violent atmosphere, and there are alot of bad things going down.

One 11 year old boy told me that the shooting broke out as he was crossing the street to come to our after-school program, and had to run back across the street to avoid the crossfire!! Kids shouldn't have to go through that. And then they walk back home in the dark from our programs to their house. Because our agency won't take the insurance liability of driving any kids home.

And I don't want to be alarmist. This will die down. Families live in this neighborhood and they need our highschool and community center. I don't want to flee.

But I can't believe the fucking nonchalant attitude of my superiors and the fucking beaurocracy of the school district, the city government, and even my agency!!

The thing is:

I walk to my car alone at night. There is no one to walk with me. My boss won't let me change my hours. There's an alley I have to cross. What if someone wanted to hide in the alley to rob me? or rape me? Or what if a gang war broke out in the alley, and I happened to be a witness they didn't want? or what if I simply accidentally walked into the crossfire?

I sit at the front desk of a community center, where there is no bulletproof glass, or even a locked door to prevent anyone running in off the street and hiding out with a gun in the building. They could come in the building and I wouldn't even know it. They could be let into the inner office of my desk without any way for me to stop them. And there's not even a security guard I can call.

There is no security gaurd. PERIOD. And noone, not my agency, not the city, not the school district, will suck it up and find the money for one.

There are security cameras - but get this-- NO ONE WATCHES THEM!! The cameras are all over the place, but the all come to video screens in a locked room where NO ONE works!! What's the friggin point?

Sooo, to make a long story short - this is an alternative high school for troubled youth, not necessarily gang members (allthough some probably are) but definitely the toughest kids who have dropped out or been kicked out of other schools for violince, gang activity, drugs, whatever -- they're all here. And yet, this is probably one of the only high schools in the country that doesn't have any kind of a campus police presence. It never occurred to anyone that the toughest kids would need security protection!! No metal detectors. No fence around the school. No one watching the video cameras. NOTHING.

It's affecting my job. I don't do shit all day. Because I'm too busy feeling sorry for the kids who live around here. Or fretting about how I'm going to leave the building alone at the end of the day. Or being pissed off at my superiors.

I'm distracted, and It's affecting my job. And not one of my superiors has said a thing to me about it! In fact, I've worked here since March without a review! They tell me I'm due for one in March. What kind of place never even gives you a friggin 6 month review to pat you on the back???

But I can't afford to give up my job because I've got bills. Mounting bills. I can't get by on any less money a month. Period. I can't take a temp job and survive. I can't cut my expenses, cuz I'm on a shoestring already. All I can do is look for a new job, and wait until the spring when I hope to be moving into a cheaper place with a friend.

Thank god I've got Dean to take my mind off of all of this on the weekends!! He's a really chill person. Easy to be with. Totally calms me down. Cracks me up. Gives me love and orgasms.

The thing I don't get is- - where is all this violence coming from?? The news is full of WAR. This neighborhood is full of WAR. And where are the PEOPLE? It's almost like nobody's human anymore.

Like, if everybody understood the value of human life, if everybody really understood themselves as a human being and valuable, then they would see other people that way, and this wouldn't happen.

But I see kids all the time who don't even look you in the eye, they have a crazed look on their face like they don't feel anything. Do these kids grow up to be grownups who don't feel? Who just act like machines?

Is the world more full of sleeping people, fucked up people, or awake people who aren't speaking up? I used to think everybody was awake, and just some people didn't speak up . . . but now I think it's probably only a quarter of the population or so that's awake, and that most of them/us are not active in a way that benefits the greater community. The rest of the population -- some are sleeping, and they can be waked up, but may not be. But some are just really fucked up.

We need to be taking care of each other. Trying to help each other. Trying to wake each other up. Trying to lessen the number of fucked up people that are produced, and help those that are become productive members of society - not rejects that can't get jobs and are forced into homelessness or crime.

And my center needs to have a security guard. Not to "get the badguys", but to make the kids feels safe at school, respect school, to make the goodguys have that little piece of mind that makes them want to stay here. So that this place could become the kind of place that helps people, wakes them up --

But if you tolerate violence, then people think that's "the way it is" and they don't remember it can be any other way. That it doesn't have to be this way.

We don't have to go to WAR, either. We have to do everything we can to stop WAR.

Because people don't treat people like that. We've got to set the example. Make this neighborhood and this world a safe place to be. But not by generating more violence.