Ghetto hospitality
August 28, 2007 5:00 am | Written by PhilA young man in the neighborhood with a shaved head, baggy shorts and bloodshot eyes asked me once again how things have been going since we moved in.
“You need any help? How are your kids doing? Anybody messing with you? You need us to take care of anybody for you? If you ever need anything, just let it be heard. Come over to my place. I live in this apartment right here.”
This offer has been made to me a few times now. The first offer was made by his friend Lost, the kid who got shot in April and whom I prayed over until the ambulance arrived. “Thank you so much for praying for me,” Lost said. “If there’s anything you need, anything at all, call me. If somebody messes with you, I know people. We’ll get him.” It is both refreshing and unnerving to receive these street-level expressions of hospitality, welcoming me to the hood. While I am thankful to be making headway with this sub-culture of our community, I am proceeding with caution. I’m not choosing a side here. These two expressions of hospitality were different in my opinion. I believe Lost’s offer (whether or not he could persuade his “people” to follow through with it) was heartfelt. It came from the heart as a genuine expression of gratitude for what I did for him the night he was shot. He feels indebted to me and (I hope) to God.I suspect the second guy, Lost’s friend, was doing more than welcoming me to the hood. Maybe I’m a cynic, but it felt like he was showing off how powerful his connections are in the community, letting me know this is “his” hood. His words of hospitality sounded like a way of putting me in my place upon my arrival. He was checking me out as much as I was checking him out. Will I look down on him or look up to him? Will I admire him or fear him? I haven’t refused these offers to take care of me and my family. I’ve said thank you. I wonder what God, whose offers can always be counted on, will do with my new relationships in the hood.
Categories: gangs
3 Responses to “Ghetto hospitality”
There is a certain attitude that people express because they were raised/lived in the ghetto. Its not an attitude meant to oust other people out but rather to remind them that a ghetto is a ghetto, a commuity of poor, non-privileged individuals who have to deal with constant struggle and hardship because they continue to be in that cycle of poverty. I don’t really understand how you take his expression of “street-level” cynically because you’re not really involved in the fights. I respect your charisma but I take it offensively when the term “ghetto” is used to refer to anything but place. I was raised in the ghetto and the term itself is used as a downgrading description to refer to people or how they act since it makes a generalization.
Not to mention the story about Jesus and the Samaritan woman. The woman is like an outcast of the community, kind of like the people who live in the ghetto are outcasts of the larger community, and she does speak to Jesus in an uninviting manner because its a man speaking to this woman of lower status (radically patriarchal society) offering more than sympathetic condolences. He offers her a better way and tells her what is wrong with her life in relation to God. So don’t be afraid to go beyond your comfort zone because as followers of Christ we are meant to suffer for him and transgress boundaries of race and class. Im talking too much. ttyl
Renoa,
I’m sorry. Thank you so much for helping us see how our (my) own labels and language can offend and hurt. And for assisting me in seeing things more clearly through the eyes of perhaps a modern day version of the woman at the well. In Him,
Phil
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