“I didn’t come here for that!” These words danced around in my mind as I looked at the totally drunken man standing at my front door. We had only been living in the neighborhood for a few weeks. Where we had lived previously (in the West End of Richmond) there were people who got just as drunk, but they tended to do it far more privately. This guy was out in the open, and he wasn’t going to hold anything back. He was also a neighbor (one of the few that was even willing to speak to my wife and I in our first weeks as the only white people in the community).
People’s skepticism about our intentions were not all together a surprise. Many of these people had seen the displacement and trouble caused for them by the white gentrification that hit the south side of Church Hill. They saw us as just another developer, just another set of money-grubbers trying to fix up a house, make a little profit and price them right out of their current living arrangements. Theories began to circulate about why we might have moved to the city. Some thought we were seeking to “save” the ‘hood’, to be the great White hope. Others thought we were out for a quick buck (we would be gone soon enough). Some (especially those involved in illegal drug activities) believed us to be undercover police seeking to investigate the nature of their small businesses. This option still makes me laugh! I mean what is more ‘undercover’ than a random white couple in the middle of a community saturated with illicit drugs.
So, to challenge the rumors with facts, my wife and I decided to introduce us whenever and wherever we could. We didn’t move to the city for any of those reasons. We moved to Chimborazo Boulevard to learn how to be neighbors. At this point, we had become fairly aware of our inability to ‘save’ others or this community. Our only goal was to see what it would be like to not live in a world insulated from the difficult realities of the city that we call home.
Needless to say, when that inebriated neighbor started to spout all sorts of obscenities at me, all I could think was, "I didn't come here for that". But, I was wrong. It was for just a time as this that God had brought me to this community. I needed to see the reality of the pain and dysfunction that is an ever-prevalent part of the city. I needed to know. I needed to taste what it feels like to be the minority, to be the one who is hurt. The question that remained was, "If I did come here for this, then how will I respond?"
This is the question that the CHAT community seeks to answer. We have decided not to pretend the deep fractures of human society aren't present. We will not avert our eyes from the deplorable conditions in which these children and their families subsist. Do we have solutions to these problems? Can we save everyone? No, but we know a God who can. The same God who took a community that was willing to follow and led them across a treacherous chasm to defeat an unstoppable foe. So, we seek to be faithful. We try to respond. Our goal: to learn to be a neighbor, to respond rightly.
By: Percy Strickland
