During one of my first weeks of Kindergarten, a girl named Hailey was introduced to our class. Hailey, the teacher explained, was deaf, so she used her hands and a special language called sign language to communicate. I’m not sure if I personally remember the day or if I remember the retelling of it by my mom and others, but my twin sister, Ambrosia and I went home that day absolutely distraught that no one else in the class spoke sign language, so Hailey had no way of making friends. Soon after, Ambrosia and I started mimicking Hailey’s interpreter and practicing sign language at home together along with books and video tapes (yes, tapes), and eventually, our teachers started carving out time in our school days for the two of us to work and learn with Hailey.
This process soon became a pattern in my life. I would identify a problem, have an emotional reaction to it, and soon be brainstorming ways to help, at times to the extent that solving others’ problems took priority over solving my own. I can’t count the number of causes that I took on throughout elementary, middle, and high school and ultimately in college. While I’d like to believe that I am still an empathetic, compassionate person at heart, somewhere along the road, that immediate compulsion to fix problems dwindled. I started to feel powerless to fix even my own small problems, let alone huge issues that have remained close to my heart like bullying, suicide, and sexual assault. No matter how many speeches I gave or events I volunteered at or even coordinated, statistics continued to rise, and I felt defeated.
Flash forward to present day. Over the past month, homeless people in Kalamazoo have been protesting a lack of resources by camping out in the prominent Bronson Park located in the heart of our downtown. I drive by the encampment almost every day, and my news-feed and email inbox have been flooded with messages about it. Until the last week, however, I’ve worked hard to ignore what was going on, mentally subscribing to the many stereotypes associated with homelessness, telling myself that there was simply nothing that I could do.
In fact, it wasn’t until last night that I finally felt that “call-to-action” impulse that I felt as a kindergartner. Local government had announced a deadline of a certain time last night for protesters to move on, as they had illegally been inhabiting the park overnight for a month, and police were said to be arresting anyone remaining. I tuned into a Facebook Live video from the Kalamazoo Gazette, frankly out of curiosity more than anything else. I started to see hateful, insensitive comments roll in (not worth repeating here) from people presumably typing from the comforts of their air conditioned homes as people sat visibly sweating in a circle on screen singing songs and likely masking at least a little bit of anxiety over the unsurety of what was to come, and something broke in me. I started responding to comments.
I’m not here to give myself a pat on the back for commenting in defense of the homeless. I think I posted three short messages. But engaging in that conversation sparked something in me that has long been in hibernation - a compulsion to help. This morning, my mom
sent me a new Facebook Live link as police did finally show up, and I ended up on the phone to her emphatically brainstorming ideas for what could be done, not unlike I had twenty-three years ago with Hailey. While we didn’t come up with any solutions on the phone, I know that the discussion won’t end there, and I will personally hold myself accountable for turning that discussion into some sort of action - whether it’s volunteering at one of the services for the homeless or even talking to my students about getting engaged and educated about what’s happening in the community. This is a huge problem and I’m certainly not going to be able to solve it alone. But by giving it attention, writing it down, and holding myself accountable for getting engaged and connecting myself to like-minded people, I believe that this fire that has ignited in me will not be easily stoked.
If you would like to donate to the Kalamazoo Gospel Mission, click here. To donate to Kalamazoo Loaves and Fishes, click here.
Donations of food can be made to Kalamazoo Loaves and Fishes and the Invisible Need Project at Western Michigan University.
Written by Jasmine LaBine