Life In The Streets: Reality of Racism

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LITS


BLACK LIFE IS PRECIOUS … SOMETIMES.

I find it difficult enough being a man, but it feels twice as hard living as a Black man. About 20-30 days ago I got evicted from my apartment. No warning, no heads-up. No clue that this was brewing behind my back. Ever since, I’ve been struggling hard, man. Yes, you read that correctly. During quarantine, working father of two got evicted. While I’m frenetically working on adjusting my life on the fly at a new job due to the virus, in a world where contact is supposed to be limited and socially distant…I now find myself without a stable living environment, two part-time jobs and my life literally in the streets. As a father, this feeling equates to failure on every level.

Oh, what’s that? No, I didn’t get evicted due to non-payment or late payments. No, I didn’t get evicted for breaking my lease or doing anything to jeopardize my position living there (mind you at the time of eviction I was on month nine of 12, lease was over October 1, 2020.) I got evicted because my roommate, a young man with multiple disabilities including paralysis, who I also was working for as a live-in aide, told me that he thinks it’s best for me to pack up and to hit the road. He had his reasons, none of which should have been a deal-breaker, but ultimately I had no legal standing to fight it. He told me that it’ll be easy to find a place because I’m “black in a small town.” Can you believe that? Knowing full well that everyone is dealing with coronavirus, knowing that I have been successfully out in the world finding work to replace substitute teaching with the schools being shut down, he still pulled the trigger on me and told me to…”F*** off” and punctuated his lack of compassion for my situation with a racist comment.

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Me wearing my mask before I enter public spaces to protect my community.

OK, so not a literal trigger on a literal gun, but was his action not close enough to actually doing it? I may still be alive and breathing…but it comes after being put out on the street and basically left for dead. No guaranteed place to eat, sleep or live. No grace period to find a new arrangement. My money and savings had been put toward kids, my car and food because of coronavirus and now I have nothing to fall back on due to being played by my roommate who, again, I was a live-in aide for. Manchester, let that sink in for a minute: I was caring for a paralyzed white man with multiple disabilities and he still kicked me out during quarantine with no care in the world. 

I feel like on top of everything else, I’ll never escape racism and it’s getting tiring, honestly.  I just want to live my life in peace and raise my kids to be good people like their father is. It kills me to think about how my day-to-day is roaming from park to park, bridge to bridge to find somewhere to sleep. It kills me to think about how my kids have to lose out on a place to live with their father and their bond being severed at the hands of the person who kicked us out on the street. I’ll never know if things would have been different if I were a white man, but based on his comment, it’s clear to me that being “a Black  man in a small town” is another way of saying “kick me when I’m down.” 

DUH, ALL LIVE MATTER…THAT’S NOT THE POINT.

ALMSNAP
“All Lives Matter is a joke to Black People’ – @MikeLoweTV 9/28/2020

Okay, so this section will be for the people who are preaching ‘ALL LIVES MATTER’. This section isn’t written toward the people who understand what Black Lives Matter means but I will appreciate you reading along to see what I’m saying to the All Lives Matter people who don’t get the message. (Oh and trust me when I say I know there are some people who KNOW what they are doing but still tease/troll us Black people.)

Okay “ALM” folks, the reason you see BLM posters, badges, stickers, signs and protesters is because innocent unarmed civilians with black skin have been murdered by law enforcement for way too long. The reason is sickening so what do we do to combat this issue and evil act against Black humans? We make visuals. The reason we make visuals is because innocent, unarmed Black Americans have been getting murdered throughout America’s bloody history so we would like awareness to grow so that the murders will stop. WE WANT TO LIVE PLEASE AND THANKS. ALM folks, I just eloquently explained to you why black Americans are rioting and preaching BLM. In no way are we looking for more attention because we’re lonely. In no way are we trying to win some popularity contest, because to be real…when you take a step back and look at America.. it is very much shaped by Black culture which is very cool and I think that’s great! We should all SHARE! So with that said we’re not screaming “black lives matter” to sound or look more important. We are screaming black lives matter so that innocent unarmed civilians that have black skin can stop being murdered. So when I see people have signs that say ALM, to me, these are either; knowing poking fun at Black people dying defenselessly or that they are the type of people that support unarmed civilians with Black skin being murdered. 

If ALM folks truly understood what BLM stood for they would not be screaming ALM they would be screaming at the police across this country to stop killing black people. Below is a screenshot via Snapchat of downtown Manchester sent to me by a fan of Manchester Ink Link actually, so real quick shout out to my sources for being down with me and keeping an eye on the Life in The Streets!

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Snapchat footage of “ALM” on Elm St Manchester, NH sent in from a INK LINK READER!

When I see somebody preaching ALM I just look at them and shake my head in disgust because they don’t understand and at the same time they’re not for me, they’re against me, I don’t want to be anywhere near them or part of that energy. They keep saying, “ALM!” when someone else says “BLM!” as if Black people don’t care about anyone else, and that’s messed up because the ALM folks are taking the BLM situation and spinning it in a direction that we’re not trying to go. When they say ALM to our BLM, they are poking fun at us and stating that our feelings and cause is a joke. ALM is making fun of Black people. Plain and simple.

We scream “black lives matter” to the world because we keep getting shot by the police and then we have this random side group of people saying, “Hey, other people matter too!” but the other people aren’t being murdered like Black people. So just cut the crap. I think people who preach ALM shouldn’t because if all lives matter, black lives are part of that too, thus they should promote BLM so that the killings will STOP. It’s as clear as day to me that racism is as strong as ever and it’ll never go away, but at least we’re in a time period where people are speaking up about it and not just letting it slide anymore. 

At least I can live with that.

About this Author

Mike Lowe

Mike writes from the perspective of a long-time city resident, Black man and father of two. He works for the Manchester school District and has been a volunteer for local youths for more than 20 years. He is also an avid gamer, networker and entrepreneur. Mike values family above all.