necessity has no law

-william langland

a few of you know, most do not, that my dad was jumped by a gang when i was six, about a block away from my home. he spent two or three weeks in a coma and survived with mild brain damage and a few psychological issues.

i haven't really thought about how that event affected my life. i refused to think that the thoughtless actions of a few idiotic street thugs could even touch me.

it actually made things extraordinarily difficult for my family. my mom and dad had never gotten along, but after the beating, my dad became very emotional and easily angered, and also clinically paranoid. my mom could never understand why he changed and blamed his character on an unwillingness to be well. there was a year and a half were i didn't speak to my dad because of an emotional burst he had towards me, even though we lived on the same property. i'm a sensitive girl, not the kind of person who could be immersed in such a stressful home environment and NOT be affected by it.

but i don't blame the gang members. my family suspects that my dad was a target because he was fighting gang activity in our neighborhood. he was making business harder for the gang in its own ghetto.

necessity has no law. the people of the ghetto are there because they are denied the resources they need to live safely and comfortably. life in the ghetto is a constant competition for resources, and if the average man can't get what he needs by honest work, he will turn to fists and guns.

i don't blame the people. i blame the system, for denying secure shelter, food, and safety to groups of people based on their bad luck to be born into those groups. i blame a society that expects the poor to secure their resources on their own, without making as much help available to them as is needed.

what happened to my family is unfortunate, at first glance. it is mere chance that it happened to us- we just happened to be in a desperate neighborhood, with desperate people in a desperate time.

i inherited an indomitable tenacity from my mother, a need for independence and strength, and a love for justice and independent thought from my father. i have not allowed the system to make me its victim. it has influenced my family, making them afraid of its oppression and vigilance, and they have fallen victim to its empty symbols of wealth and prestige.

i feel uncomfortable claiming superiority over my parents, but i have so far been able to escape these extreme approaches. i can see the flaws in the system, and how they affect humanity. i can see what is useful in the system and what must change if we want to keep our society from self-destructing. i am using what resources and influences i have come across to subvert and re-create the system to work for those who came from necessity, but were not as fortunate as i.


there's no silver lining in a terrific thunderstorm, but that storm will disperse eventually
when it does, the Earth will be nourished, anew
you can abandon the land in fear that thunder will strike twice
or stay and cultivate the new Earth
and reap the benefits of your labor