Strength in Diversity and Compassion – Wise Words from My Father

It's been a while since my last post, and although much has happened in my personal and professional life, I think – given the severity of world events – it's most appropriate to dedicate this first-in-a-long-time entry to the alarming increase in xenophobia and racism that is affecting communities large and small.

James & Linda Henning. Photo by Bev Widney.

Long before the current administration tried to close our borders to refugees struggling to find a safe home for their families, the Brooklyn neighborhood I grew up in faced a similar small-scale crisis:

The city planned to open a homeless shelter for women and children in Kensington, where my father grew up and still lives today with my mother.

For nearly fifty years he has served the community in its keystone organization, The Albemarle Neighborhood Association, and has taken an active role in neighborhood affairs.

In fall 2015 a community meeting was held to discuss "The Kensington" shelter and my father was appalled by the "absolute panic" of residents – many of whom were themselves immigrants seeking a better life – fearful of the newcomers' effect on the community.

As a longtime resident who knew the community's history of diversity and compassion, he drafted a short presentation to address these fears and remind his neighbors of the importance of lending a helping hand to those in need.

His words, over a year later, are even more relevant today, as we must continue to remember that we are a country united not by ethnicity or common heritage, but by ideals. And that most central ideal – to welcome those "yearning to breathe free" – must never be forgotten.

An ANA Table at a Recent Street Fair. Courtesy of  KARMABrooklyn Blog.

Comments for “The Kensington” Homeless Shelter Meeting, Thursday 12/10/2015

Good Evening.  My name is James Henning. Perhaps you know me from the Albemarle Neighborhood Association.   

I am a long-time resident of this neighborhood. Except for four years in the service, and four years living in Manhattan when my wife and I were first married, I’ve lived here all my life. I went to [the local elementary school] P.S. 130 – and my kids went to P.S.130 also. And although we don’t own a house, we have as much to lose as anyone in this auditorium if things went seriously wrong in this neighborhood.  

So, we have a fair amount of trepidation regarding the opening of a homeless shelter here.

Even so, I think the people coming to the shelter, homeless mothers and their children, should be accepted into our neighborhood.  It is the noble and compassionate thing to do.

I’m sure that many of us here have themselves been in dire straits at one time or another in their lives, or at least know people close to them who were in such a situation, and needed a helping hand.  

These people, although strangers to us, are NYC residents and need acceptance and a helping hand for themselves and for their children. 

Without a family network, or even friends with sufficient resources, they have turned to the city for this helping hand.

And the city has turned to us.

New York City at present is enjoying a period of prosperity.  One way or another we all are enjoying the fruits of this prosperity. For example: Home owners are seeing their property values rise. Landlords are seeing see that they can charge higher rents for their apartments. 

But, like so many things in life, this prosperity has a downside, and that downside is homelessness.  

I think it only fair, that while enjoying this prosperity, we also assume responsibility for the homeless situation, and do our part. 

I was at the meeting held at the Windsor Terrace Library and I must say that it was an embarrassment: Instead of witnessing respectful consideration of the points being presented by the attending officials, I witnessed absolute panic over what may or may not happen as a result of the opening of the shelter, and heard much anger and bitterness often aimed at things unrelated to the opening of the shelter.  

In addition, I saw the officials being treated with appalling disrespect. 

That said, I hope that you all here see the need for compassion and acceptance for those who will be our new neighbors. 

One way to think of them is as immigrants.  

Everybody here is either an immigrant or the descendant of immigrants and we’re all grateful for this country’s compassionate history of the welcoming of immigrants.

So, in that same spirit, rather than dismiss the shelter and its occupants out of hand, let’s welcome the new arrivals and, if problems arise, let’s deal with them rationally on a case-by-case basis.

We are a very diverse community, and this is something to boast about because we get along with each other quite well.  

In fact, it has always been a diverse community – all the way back to the 1940s!

With this in mind, I trust that our “better angels” will guide us this evening to a thoughtful and constructive meeting regarding this new addition to our community.

Thank you.

Life Imitating This American Life (or Quit It, Ira Glass, You're Freaking Me Out)

It's Friday, October 5th around 10pm.  My chosen listening for my commute to and from work is the recent podcast of This American Life, "Send a Message."

The opener describes the bizarre coincidence of Kepler's translations of Galileo's coded messages.

In a nutshell, as host Ira Glass describes, "[Here was] a guy ... [Galileo, who] would send a message that he probably hopes will never be decoded. And then it gets decoded, but incorrectly. And then the wrong message turns out to be right not once but two times."

(For details, you're just going to have to listen to the episode, or read the transcript.... it is too weird and arcane to get into here.)

The next story, the show's Act One -- The Motherhood of the Travelling Pants, delved into weirder synchronicities, as a family recounts its generations-old tradition of sending either a pair of little-boy pants or a little-girl dress to the next expectant mother. And, with a statistically brain-breaking level of accuracy, the sender (usually the last person who bore a child) correctly predicts the sex of the newborn.

This is put to an astonishing test when one prior mother can't decide which to send -- so she sends both the dress and the pants to the next mother. And the new mother has... wait for it... fraternal twins!!

So here it is, 10pm and I'm  on my way home after having stayed late at the office to put the finishing touches on my solo show. And I am up to the next segment, Act Two -- Message in a Bottle -- told by stand-up comic and musician Dave Hill -- which, as one would expect from a stand-up, contains its share of playful crudity.

He begins bemoaning the current edge-lessness of our recently sanitized  city:

I understand that there was a time in New York when you could walk down the street, and just crack open a beer, and just suck it down, and throw the bottle on the ground. [LAUGHTER] And you might get, like, a little raped, or whatever. [LAUGHTER] But it didn't matter. It was like a give and take. You took the good with the bad. And everyone was fine with it. And now you can't really get away with any of that stuff. But you can get a really nice brunch at a lot of places. Just go with your friends, free refills on mimosas. It's great for everybody.

And this is true. As a native of this town, I remember all too well the crack dealers prowling the corners of Lafayette and Bond (on my way to do stand-up, myself, at the First Amendment Comedy Club), and I remember vaulting over mats of sleeping homeless on my way to class at NYU.

And I have seen my share of exposed body parts and those parts' various secretions. 

But I have never had an experience quite like what followed that evening on the downtown B train.

So, as I am listening to this segment, where Mr. Hill describes putting a rather harmless piece of refuse on top of  one of those large black garbage bins that can be found at the edges of many subway platforms. This apparently disturbs a homeless guy sleeping near the bin:

And he's like this sleeping giant, just like, [GROWLING SOUNDS]. And he gets up. And his bones are creaking. And his hair is, like, all crazy all over the place. And he looks at me. And he just starts yelling. And he's like, back up! Back up! 

Hill fails to back up.

At that moment, a B train pulls in. Now, I always get on at the last door of the last car because I need the rear exit of my stop. And I usually sit in one of the forward-facing window seats of the back-most cluster of the B's R68 cars.

But there'ss a homeless guy huddled up in the backward-facing seat of the rearmost cluster, so I move to the next cluster up and sit facing backwards (which I usually never do on an empty car since I prefer to face forwards).

So I am sitting there, directly behind the homeless guy, spacing out a little with my eyes gazing towards the floor, and Dave Hill continues on:

And then he goes, back up or I'll throw this bottle of piss on you! And then from out of nowhere, like a ninja, all of a sudden he's got this Gatorade bottle.  And it's a huge Gatorade bottle. ... Only, instead of being full of delicious and refreshing Gatorade, it's full of pee, of urine.

And at the very moment Hill says this:

And before he even finishes his sentence, he cocks his arm back and just launches it at me. ... His aim was incredible. It was just coming right at me. The first blow nails me right in the head.

I begin to notice some liquid travelling down the center of the car towards me.

Now, liquid in a subway car is not that big a deal. People still drink all kinds of beverages (even though you are not supposed to have open containers anymore) and they slop them cavalierly whenever and wherever they please.

But this liquid is special. It isn't spilled-soda liquid -- a single, localized hit -- this liquid keeps on coming. I trace my eyes along the widening rivulet, following it towards the back of the car and I see ... wait for it... a full Bethesda Fountain emerging from the lap of the homeless guy. It is arcing its perfect parabola towards the center of the car.

Now, as I mentioned, I have seen a lot of stuff -- but I have never seen this -- a full-blown, unrepentant micturition right into the center of a subway car.

It takes me at least 20 seconds to wrap my mind around what I'm seeing, as Hill goes on:

It's going down my back and down my jacket. And it's soaking my pants. It soaks through my pants, soaks my underwear. He had effectively wet my pants with his pee.

And I'm realizing, "Hey this is a crazy-assed coincidence!" And then I think, "Hey maybe I should take a picture of this..." But he's been at it for at least 30 seconds, so I figure it's probably all over and I continue to listen to the podcast.

Because if you figure if your opponent's first move in a confrontation is to just drench you in his own pee, like, what's next? At the very least, he's got a couple more bottles of pee back there, you figure.

The pee fountain continues full force, and finally I decide that yes I will photograph this insane event, but the moment I get my phone out the car stops and the people sitting in front of me get up and block the last few moments of the geyser.

So it's all over.

I move to the next backward facing seat hoping get a good shot of the urine starburst on the floor and its watery trail through the car -- which is shown here -- as well as the homeless guy himself, who huddled back to sleep the moment he was done.

And in a testament to the fact that neither New York nor New Yorkers have lost our edge, another passenger continued to sit blithely just a few feet from the homeless guy all through the urination episode (see his feet at the right of the photo). 

Yes, Dave, this motherf*cking town is back!!

Holiday Cheer -- New York Style

Or "How to Make the World Your Personal Soup Kitchen..."

So.

I've been nursing this nasty cold and finally drag myself down to Europa Café for some medicinal chicken soup.

I pay at the register with a $20 and the gal behind the counter bags my soup and gives me change in the dumbass way everyone does these days -- putting the bills flat in my outstretched hand, and dumping the coins on top. I try to tip the coins into her jar, but they spill on the floor.

So I bend over to pick them up, and when I stand up to retrieve my bag o' soup -- IT'S GONE!

"Where's my soup??" I ask counter-girl.

She shrugs.

"That woman took it," a man pipes up from the other side of the counter.

"What?" I blurt, "What woman? Where?"

Some other customers bleat out agreement, "Yeah, her, she took it."

At first it looks like they're pointing a pair of suited execs at the table nearest me, so I'm figuring one of them grabbed my bag by mistake.

"Them??" I ask.

The man shakes his head "no" and guides my eyes with his finger, one table over....

"That homeless woman!"

Almost as though she were emerging from my blind spot, I suddenly see this enormous straw-haired raggedy blob slurping down my soup.

"You??!" I splutter, "You took my soup??"

She looks dead in my face and says, "You gave it to me!"

I turn back to counter-girl.

"You let her take my soup?!?"

She shrugs.

I repeat, "You let her take my soup?!?!"

She shrugs again, implying that it was my fault.

After all, I suppose, once money had changed hands -- even on that very counter -- she no longer had any responsibility where theft was concerned.

Now, maybe it would be another story if she had stealthfully grabbed the bag and run. But she was sitting right there, and had effected the crime in front of multiple witnesses!!

I barrel down on this inept creature: "You have to replace my soup."

"I can't do that."

"Yes you can. You can and will give me another soup."

This goes back and forth for much longer than it should have -- so now our homeless culprit gets both lunch and entertainment -- until counter-girl finally sends me to the soup station just to shut me up.

Really.

These jerks should take a lesson from Starbuck's where, every once in a while, some douchebag grabs a paying customer's drink.

And they replace it on the spot.

No questions asked.

So.

Soup in hand, I gather a bag and napkin (apparently guess-who got the last spoon), turn to the homeless woman and say, "Merry Christmas."