The Silver Lining

It is past midnight in Addlestone library. I am hunched over a computer, squinting into a rough draft of my DIAC essay on the cycle of crime which lead poisoning introduces into low-income communities of color. I hack at the keyboard, but my efforts are to little avail. Taking a break to check my phone, I receive a text from my friend Chloe. “Have you seen this?” The text reads. Attached is a picture of a young man wearing an orange prison jumpsuit. The young man’s back is to the camera, and the name “Freddie Gray” is scrawled in black sharpie in between his two shoulder blades. With my recent research on lead poisoning and crime for the essay, I had become familiar with the tragic story of Freddie Gray– a Black man whose death while in police custody ignited a wildfire of riots and protests across Baltimore, Maryland. Gray’s spine was severed during his arrest, and he was refused medical treatment. How could any fellow student of mine behave with such ignorance? Especially being surrounded by a city with such a loaded racial past?

I was left feeling uncomfortable and self-reflective. I was eager to prove to the Charleston community that not all White, privileged College of Charleston students were as careless or insensitive as the student perpetrator. Especially not those, such as myself, who live in the Charleston’s Eastside neighborhood– a historical community of mostly low-income families of color. After a lot of consideration, I figured that there is one thing that I surely can do: act. I have come to realize that I have ample opportunity to combat ignorance here in the local playing field, and I have started my community-building efforts by joining an organization called People Against Rape, Charleston’s advocacy organization for adult survivors of sexual assault. By the time the Fall 2017 semester is over, I will have thirty-five hours under my belt as a hotline volunteer and hospital advocate with P.A.R. By working with P.A.R., I am arming myself with a greater understanding of Charleston’s sexual assault issue. But, more importantly, I am providing direct support to a marginalized community of people within Charleston: assault survivors. Getting to do advocacy work with real faces has helped foster my love and devotion for my new community, and fight ignorance and injustice here in Charleston.

Working with P.A.R. is only the start of my community-building journey in Charleston. Starting in 2018, I am eager to team up with the Eastside Community Development Corporation, a grassroots organization focused on community empowerment specifically within the Eastside neighborhoods of Charleston. Soon I will begin grant writing to land funding for a project that will provide free menstrual supplies to the women of the Eastside who may have trouble buying the supplies otherwise. I hope to channel the strong emotion I experience in situations of injustice, such as the Halloween costume incident, into greater efforts of community-building and development. I will use my sociology major from the College as a tool to network and gain exposure for my efforts. My goal by the end of 2018 is to mobilize an effort to connect and educate the students of College of Charleston on the incredible Eastside community, and other less frequently known– but equally deserving– communities within our city.