On Friday i started heading toward home around 5:30. I ride certain bus lines so much that i kind of have their schedules memorized. It's scary. Cuz i was just chilling in the library and i looked at the clock and thought the bus should be passing by in about 5 min. So i run out of the library to catch it and i got there just before it pulled out. Anyhow, I get on the bus and start reading my book and listening to high school students sing praise and worship songs. then i hear a girl exclaim. I look up and see that the road is blocked. The police have set out flares on this major street and it's inaccessible for over 3 blocks. Since it's such a major intersection it caused a huge traffic jam. We were crawling for 20 minutes through the detour. So the girl is like, oh no- somebody probably got killed again. It was amazing how that sentiment probably echoed everyone's automatic conclusions. Yet there was a hesitation in me to just blindly accept that or even think that was what happened. There's a part of me that always believes that if I don't accept it then maybe it won't be true. I think i finally got home around 6:30 and of course my parents had already watched it on the news and were able to tell me that some car thief had chosen to hide out in the park so the police had blocked the streets for hours trying to get him to surrender. I still don't know what really happened because i didn't take the time to watch the news but now i can speculate indefinitely.

That got me thinking about the other time something in my neighborhood made the news. The year was 1992. I was in 8th grade trying hard to be oblivious to the world around me and i was doing a pretty good job. Then one day my little brother came home and said "Kemi, I know what's going to be on the news tonight. I saw a whole bunch of helicopters and police on the way home." I totally disregarded what he said cuz I thought he really didn't know what he was talking about. Alas he was right. He and my dad drove thru Florence and Normandie and watched as the LA riots began. For the next three days my brothers and i remained glued to the television set as the LA riots engulfed our neighborhood. I was a little bit mad at the looters because they burned down businesses in our neighborhood. I kept hoping they would move their activities to Beverly Hills or somewhere on that side and stop destroying our neighborhood because we would have to suffer and live with the consequences of their actions.

I'm sad to say that my fleeting sentiments turned out to be right on the money. Every major store within walking distance of my house was plundered and razed to the ground. Some lots still stand vacant today and most businesses weren't rebuilt until 1996. Was it worth the cost? We had our two minutes of glory and the whole country turned its eyes towards our problems and agonized with us over the injustice of the racist society in which we live. But two minutes later their eyes were averted to some other crisis and somehow we had to find a way to pick up the broken pieces. I feel as if the riots set us back so much. Our neighborhoods (South Central LA) were already wheezing and coughing with the illness of poverty, despair and hopelessness and then in our rage we ran out into the cold and got soaking wet. So then we caught pnemonia and since we have no health care (we're illegal immigrants) we couldn't be hospitalized. Finally someone (the government) saw us lying in bed incapacitated and took pity on us by giving us cough medicine. So although we're grateful things don't look too promising right now.

I always joke with my brother that i'm going to put together a guide to the ghetto. Like 10 ways you can tell you're in the ghetto. I can't really do it because i think it would be way too discouraging and dismal. But sometimes i just turn it over and over in my mind and it seems absolutely unfair. How can I go from Palo Alto to EPA and still be in the same state, in the same country? Or how can I go from Westwood to Compton and still be in LA county? I remember going to this conference and the pastor said "there's a liquor store and a church on every corner. But the liquor store has more influence". This was a five day conference and i went to tons of seminars, heard about 10 sermons and nothing sticks out in my mind as clearly as this statement. I guess it's cuz of what i see everyday when i walk home. There is almost nothing but churches and liquor stores. This is not neccessarily a bad thing but when I walk down other major streets there's a whole lot more going on. In fact if i'm at San Vicente & Lincoln in Brentwood, there's a Starbucks, Noah's Bagel, Jamba Juice, Blockbuster Video, Bank of America, LA Public Library, Rite Aid and more and this is just at the intersection! When i use to commute between Brentwood/Pacific Palisades and my house on the other side of town the incronguities really disturbed me. My brother and i were talking and we decided that the most common sites around here are liquor/discount stores, beauty salons, and churches.

So I started thinking to myself, why is that our city is littered with churches and despair? One time in junior high school i was waiting at the bus stop and this guy got a can of spray paint and started writing a huge message on the side walk. I don't know how we started talking but he told me that he's been going to church every sunday for his whole life. He has freedom to committ any criminal offenses he wants during the week (noone's stopping him) but come sunday morning his mother forces him to go to church. I remember just being incredulous that this young criminal (he was into other stuff besides graffitti) had been going to church for as many years as I had. It wowed me. Maybe that's why the church is called to be the salt and the light of the world. I feel there is so much darkness around us and too many of us Christians are trying to find a nite light instead of realizing God has given us everything we need to light this world up the way a flourescent light bulb lights up a room.
Crenshaw Christian Center is approx. five blocks away from my house and it has a seating capacity of 10,318. Each Sunday the sanctuary is about 3/5 full. Anyways, I heard the pastor's wife say in an interview that they have 365 employees and they are second largest employer of blacks in the state of California. I think that they probably generate 50% of the business in my neighborhood. But since it's a nonprofit they probably don't pay business tax and don't generate that much revenue for the area. I was reading this article about TD Jakes today. I think his income is like 1.7 million dollars (I could be wrong). And sometimes he gets attacked for preaching a health and wealth gospel and telling people what they want to hear through a mixture of religious psychology that blends surprisingly well with a lot of common trends today. Anyhow the thing is Fred Price and TD Jakes get attacked for reducing Christianity to prosperity. Now i don't agree with a lot of stuff that Pastor Price teaches but i understand where he and TD Jakes are coming from. They basically are like, look I can't preach to people who are unemployed, down on their last leg, struggling to find food to eat every day, just came out of prison, the same as I would to a typical middle class affluent congregation in suburbia. They have pressing problems and they want to learn how can i overcome this stuff? So they are committed to sharing the gospel and equipping people to drastically alter their lifestyles for the better.

(i'm going somewhere with these thoughts but i don't know if i'll get there) meanwhile i'm going to comment on other people's web pages.

Darlene I love your thoughts- dude is it possible to fall in love with someone's mind? Cuz i love some minds a whole lot. Anyways i liked how you were talking about feeling like no one understands you. I thought i was the only one who ever felt that way. And i'm so glad that you're got an interview for med school. Keep your head up! I will endeavor to be a part of that 5% of your readership who prays for you.

Michelle- i've been missing Kzkh alot alot. I got a Christmas card and i recently found a Russian speaker in one of my classes to translate it for me and it made me want to cry. I dream of going back but it's hard cuz i know it won't be the same.

Dave - I got chills down my spine reading your page talking about my page. It was weird to get all that praise for something whose validity i doubt. Not like it's not true, it's just i'm biased I don't want to change someone else with my opinions.

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