You have, with your delicate artist's brush, painted a nightmarish picture of a poor, black neighborhood in Baltimore where children lack privilege and have "moms" who are unaware of if not indifferent to their suffering. I have no doubt that you must be a compassionate person to have held that child's hand and faced with her an almost unspeakable moment of terror and sadness. But, what is so troubling about your story (to me) is that you took it upon yourself to feel like a "failure" when faced with Whitney's tragedy because you had already taken responsibility for her feelings. The irony is that despite your sincerity and the apparent depth of your experience with these troubled children, you portray them as victims of injustice, incapable of transcending themselves without your help. It is almost as if their pursuit of excellence is somehow reliant on your own moral authority.

Self-responsibility - or freedom - can pose as an overwhelming burden to some. I witnessed that myself while growing up in a "poor, black" neighborhood in Detroit that is very similar to this one in Baltimore. I'm still in Michigan, working as a community artist there. In that role, I take it upon myself to be a catalyst for change because I do not believe that people can uplift themselves without taking full responsibility for doing so. I also know that the presence of a safe space where a child can feel challenged and free to be themselves is intrinsic to their being whole, as opposed to being "broken" or "unmotivated". In short, it seems like your achievements are beautiful ones. It also seems, however, that they could have been recounted with much more carefully chosen words.

I have to say that ebony's comment on this essay reads like the response of someone who quickly skimmed the article with an agenda already in mind, looking only for cues of what they presume to be the writer's paternalism and false moral authority. The fact is that Ms. Gardner is perfectly candid in making her point of view clear throughout the piece, and speaks with the voice of someone who is well aware of her standing as a person who has not had to face many of the social ills found in her adopted community, expressing her reservations and discoveries as they came.

The hostile tone in the comment becomes clear when, after making a withering (and itself patrician) compliment on Mari's compassion, ebony accuses her of "taking it upon [herself] to feel like a 'failure'," using that hook as an opportunity to imply that Mari's somehow taken ownership of something that does not belong to her. The fact is, and maybe this is not true for ebony, one does not "take it upon themselves" to feel like anything--we just feel. There's no ownership here, no oppressive presence of privilege, just a woman telling us how she felt in a raw and genuine way that was not vetted for whether it meets the standards for how she should present herself. I find it pretty refreshing, myself.

I'm also disturbed by the way language is used here, and the constant, needling implication of some sort of self-serving moral satisfaction that Ms. Gardner's presumed to be guilty of. Ms. Gardner does portray the children as victims of injustice, and any child who's not given what they need certainly is a victim of injustice, but to extend that into a blanket judgment of her as an interfering, moralizing outsider is just wrong.

These kids are, for the most part, in a position where they cannot transcend their situation without help, most obviously demonstrated by the fact that they have not done so, and Mari is the person who stepped in to give them that hand up. The ugly subtext of the comment is a tired old suggestion that she's coming in as this "great white hope," ministering to the helpless, but the facts are far different, and it's clear in the essay that this is not the case. When Whitney returns to the project, it is precisely because she has followed her own process, and taken care of herself, and moved on at at a pace that she was comfortable with. She came back to the project because she felt empowered to do so, not because she had to, or because she'd been manipulated by outside forces. She was a prime example of how you can be a victim of circumstances beyond your control and still in control of your own destiny. The two are not in opposition, and I think Mari's piece eloquently demonstrates that.

Sadly, ebony's comment really should have been a private email, sent to Mari to point out where her writing seemed weak and where it was strong, but instead, it's just a grandstanding, dismissive complaint that doesn't do anything but further the cause of keeping people in their own "place." Do I think there are places where the essay could be better? Sure. Are there points where the language is troublesome? Of course. That's true in anything you write about things involving race and socioeconomic status and the dynamic between people who are in a community from birth and those who come by choice, and it's always going to be that way. We study, we experiment, we learn, and it's a process that is necessary and essential for community artists and other people working for social justice.

What's not necessary is to trot out the same tired old suspicions and prejudices in response, using backhanded, heavily-qualified "compliments" as the introduction to accusations of insensitivity and worse, and it does nothing to further community art and the good that it can do.

Did Ebony read the same article that I did?

The issues raised in the article by Mari Gardner are the issues I have lived with growing up in the city of Baltimore. A city that doesn't care about the young and poor. A city with a dangerous school system that graduates children who can't read or write and who are unprepared to get a job or to go to college. Young teens having babies. Single mothers trying to raise their children. Rampant drug use. Violent crime. Racism from all sides. Growing up in Baltimore can be a nightmare for a child. When you grow up in Baltimore, you know what it is to be a victim of injustice.

There are a few strong individuals who do not need help to transcend their environment and make something of themselves. For the rest of us mere mortals, we need all the help we can get. I love and cherish the people who took the time to show me a path out, to help me discover that I didn't need to settle, to show me what options I had in the world.

I have a bachelors degree from Morgan State University and a Masters from Johns Hopkins. I have a good job and a good family. To say that these were my accomplishments would be an insult to the good people who helped me along the path.

My words are not carefully chosen, Ebony, and that's probably because I'm mad. Why are we, who are trying to help these poor children to have a life, beating each other up over the inconsequential? There are real issues facing our society. Mari Gardner's article provides a vivid depiction of the tremendous challenges facing our children in Baltimore. The good people in this world need to address these challenges. We need to fix the schools, clean up the crime, and provide decent housing and health care for the poor. These challenges are almost insurmountable, and they will never be achieved when we work against each other.

The greatest strength of this article might be that it has elicited so much debate. It's evident that each person who commented sees the world through their own lens, filtered with their personal experiences and values.

This raises an important issue for community artists, particularly those who work in "host" communities. Mari Gardner's ingenuous depiction of her experience in Baltimore is refreshing to some and offensive to others. Why? Is it because personal values or different ways of seeing inevitably cause hostility among people? Not necessarily. But when a dialogue occurs wherein the participants dismiss or reject views that are dissimilar to their own, resentment and antagonism are bound to arise.

The first comment sounds like it was written with an agenda in mind. Ebony says that she is troubled and chastises Mari for being (more or less) inarticulate. It seems that Ebony is more distressed by what Mari represents, than by Mari herself. The second comment outright rebukes the assertion that Mari is interfering or moralizing, although it does acknowledge that the language in the article is, in some places, troublesome. And Matt, who claims that he grew up in Baltimore and would be nothing more than a victim of circumstance had it not been for the people who helped him, is mad that those who are in a position to be helping have opted to beat each other up over the inconsequential.

What's most striking about all three comments is that none of them seem like appropriate responses for people who serve community. Hypothetically, if all of these people were at a community meeting together, face to face, would they say these things? And if they did, what then? I'll take it a step further. Let's say that you are a community artist, and it's your second week in your host community. A resident from the neighborhood stops you on the street and says with some aggression, "Why are you here?" Again I ask what then? Do you, the community artist, tell them that they are wrong to ask that? Perhaps you simply walk away and say to yourself "well, that’s just the way he/she feels." Or do you acknowledge their question as valid and consider for a moment that this suspicious resident might one day be your greatest ally?

I think that the issue here is that every cultural worker assumes a certain challenge when they enter into a community -- one that requires them to recognize and creatively respond to cultural dynamics and the values that lie beneath. In order to achieve that, they must first be conscious of how their own assumptions and values shape the ways in which they function as agents of change. In as such, they must also be willing to accept that feelings don't simply exist without their own foundation. Different or diverse perspectives can be great assets to the community artist, as opposed to deficits that hinder the advancement of his or her work. The irony of Ebony's comment is that both she and Mari identify a general lack of responsibility that is cause for frustration and concern. Maybe Ebony has more in common with Mari than she realizes.

Suffice it to say that in the end, a person's experiences, values and ways of seeing are valuable because they carry meaning. That said, the capacity to discern and unearth meaning should be regarded as the mortar that builds community and furthers the discipline of community art, thus making a difference in opinion far from inconsequential.

The tiresome sentimentalism of the second comment sounds like the result of a clouded opinion, written by someone who feels obliged to defend the person rather than the product.

And as far as the product is concerned, there is ownership indeed. "I can never truly understand" is a tired catchphrase taken from Race Studies 101, and is moreover, evidence of a need to meet certain standards. This article represents a tired cliche that has not been annihilated but that has turned in on itself recursively, which is precisely why troublesome language should be addressed and eradicated. Furthermore, saying that "it's always going to be this way" certainly sounds like a pat way to rationalize why we will always have the poor (to quote Christ).

Race is a red herring. It sports stats. It is actually easier to talk about, whereas people being poor, and generating wealth to deal with said poverty . . . well, that's really hard. That makes us address things we don't like to discuss. Things where there are tangible solutions which would require actual work; actual politics and disagreements; things where we cannot have simple answers like "race discrimination is bad" or "it is bad not to like someone because they are a certain color".

The only accurate argument in this comment is that Ebony?s compliments were in fact back-handed and she probably should have just disagreed with Mari instead of saying anything nice. However, coming as it does from what is essentially a page-long ad hominem really makes it seem like there is a lot of discomfort there. The suspicions and prejudices are "tired" and "old". Well, jeez, they must then not be valid! I don't see even one single effective attack upon them. The impression of discomfort I received seems to stem from how long the missive was, and how superficial it seemed in relation to its length.

If there's one thing more amusing than to be accused of an ad hominem attack in a response TO an ad hominem attack BY yet another ad hominem attack, it's that the last attack uses the exactly the same language that it self-reflexively claims to be the problem.

Cheers on hitting exactly the same targets with brevity, "catchphrasester," for whatever that's worth. What a triumph.

I guess should have taken a revisionist view, used only the most current and up-to-date acceptable language, and laid it all out in black-and-white (oops, is that a challenging metaphor?). The fact is that the language you use to discuss these things is complicated, will always be complicated, and to say that's how it is is a statement of understanding that the world's complicated. It doesn't mean that problems can't be solved or things can't be discussed, only that they require subtlety, context, and understanding.

Oddly, though, as brief as the comment was, it utterly failed to address anything but my own comment, and with as much fuzz and vitriol as it presumed to be present in my comment.

Funny how the language fails us.

I'll make it simpler. For all the complaints made about Mari Gardner's piece, there's a key thing that's overlooked. She's there, in her community, 24/7/365, working, talking, learning, exploring, dealing with the problems that "catchphrasester" seems to think could be solved with the simple bureaucratic gesture of employing only politically-correct language and beating down the people who come at problems without mastering the art of academic office politics and speaking in gimmicky catchphrases. Sometimes she gets it right, sometimes she gets it wrong, but for all that, she's still right there, trying hard.

Where are you?

How's that for ad hominem?

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