Northeast Parade next Tuesday night. Do I march with ArtShare (I'm on the Board) or the Eastside Food Co-op (we're members) or the Marcy School (my kid's school)? Too many damned choices! We're an involved bunch we are, here in Northeast. At least, "Upper Northeast" is involved. Our classist geography tends to exclude "Lower Northeast" where the poorest people live, sandwiched there between the gentrifying riverside neighborhoods and the increasingly-gentrified working class neighborhoods up the hill. An area criss-crossed with railroad tracks, light industrial zones and heavily-traveled thruway. High lead count housing.
Next year I should pull together my food shelf clients, and we'll march in the parade. The Little Kitchen Food Shelf float. What should that look like? A political map of Northeast made out of little tufts of tissue paper, depicting the 2nd Precinct crime map overlayed with annual income and number of single-parent households, perhaps. The parade marches right down Central Avenue, the north-to-south dividing line between the haves and have-nots, generally; between high-rental absent-landlord neighborhoods and generational homeownership. We'll carry a big banner: "We ALSO are Northeast!"
Not this year though. This year I'll march with the "haves".
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