Monday afternoon I had the opportunity to witness my first
city council meeting and I left feeling like I witnessed something pretty
powerful. It wasn’t just the event itself that impacted me, but how it fit into
a slew of synchronistic events.
Synchronicity - the
simultaneous occurrence of events that appear significantly related but have no
discernible causal connection.
Do you ever feel like things are working you in a direction
for a reason you don’t fully understand, yet feel fully compelled to see it
through? Well, that was April for me.
I was really honored when I got the call from my buddy in
Atlanta giving me the opportunity to host Ona Brown’s Albuquerque stop of her “Own
Your Dreams” tour on April 6th. Among the many amazing people I met through
that organizing and planning effort, was Cathryn MacGill of New Mexico Black
History Month Organizing Committee. She mentioned an event I should try and
come back to Albuquerque to attend, and on Saturday April 11th I received the
invitation. That day I was running for the Board of Directors at the Mountain
View Market Co-op’s Annual Member Meeting where I met Kary Bachman whom I found
out was going to that very event Cathryn had just invited me to. I was considering
going but wasn’t committed until Kary invited me to ride along with her and her
colleague. A week later I found myself enjoying the ride and getting to know a
little more about Kary, Place Matters, the Community Foundation and her
colleague Jenna and the Health Impact Assessment she had just finished putting
together.
At the event I learned about Healthy People, Healthy Places
and all of the great work Con Alma and The Community Foundation is doing to not
only assist the less fortunate with programs, but also effect policy change to
break the cycles of “institutional racism” and create more health equity. I was
most intrigued by the notion that your zip code and skin color determine your
health, especially coming from my background as a health enthusiast and
wellness coach. Up until now, I liked to inspire people to change from the
inside, seeing that I, a black man raised in the disparaging environments of Chaparral
and Gadsden High School, was able to overcome my zip code, graduate college and
earn a draft pick by the highly competitive National Football League.
On this day, I found myself astounded by a map breaking down
the city of Albuquerque based on income levels, which usually also includes
ethnicity, and how it coincided with the locations of numerous businesses that produce
chemicals and pollutants that are known to be hazardous. It painted a more
clear picture as to how city planners, politicians and the wealthy don’t allow
certain entities in some communities, while others such as the under-served and
under-represented minorities are taken advantage of by the very systems those
individuals look to for support and respite. I was touched by the plight for a
people who might not know their options and who have become, or have been
conditioned to be, so dependent on the system that they eagerly accept whatever
they get.
That was all day Friday, and I woke up so inspired Saturday morning
I wrote this letter to the people I met at the Con Alma event that resembled
the manifesto Jerry Maguire wrote in the beginning of the movie. Then, on Monday I missed the proclamation of
April as Mountain View Market Co-op month, but made it to city hall in time to
hear the discussion on rezoning, where I strategically gave up my two minutes
to speak to Carrie Hamblin of The Green Chamber who put her two minutes plus
mine together so eloquently to represent the chambers position. So, I share my
opinion now:
The businessman, Dr. Aday, who wanted to change the zoning
of his land to develop a grocery store, gave a good introduction to his cause;
he sounded like a businessman making a viable business choice. A lawyer and a
representative from a company in Colorado, most likely hired by Wal-Mart, accompanied
him and reflected the legitimacy of the business transaction which could create
jobs and get a portion of Tashiro built out to help with the traffic a new
grocery store would create.
When the locals had their turn to speak the conversation
became highly emotionally charged as business owners and employees spoke from
the heart about what would be lost if Wal-Mart was able to buy that piece of
land. It was quite impressive to see the employees speak so highly of their
employers and their company’s impact in our community. The main issues were
great jobs being lost to sub-par Wal-Mart jobs without benefits, when you look
at part-time employment, as well as safety concerns about the traffic increase
on Tashiro. Besides those concerns, the theme of pride in our community seemed
to be an underlying notion, which is what I really wanted to speak on.
As an entrepreneur I am a fan of Sam Walton’s work. The most
respected authors on entrepreneurship and business practices frequently cite
what Walton and Wal-Mart have been able to do, and anyone would be a fool to
deny the strength of Wal-Mart’s business model. I also recognize that there are
ways of getting things done and then there are conscious efforts to not only
serve individual desires, but to also serve humanity. I’ve heard it stated
succinctly as the 3 P’s that the cooperative model strives to embody: people,
planet and profit, known as the Triple Bottom Line.
Everyone in the room was speaking for their own selfish
motives; if you are not being selfish you might be a saint. The Wal-Mart people
didn’t seem like villains to me, they looked like any neighbor at work, doing
what he or she is paid to do. All of the local businesses were protecting their
interests; just the same as you and I go to work and selfishly secure our
portion for the day whether we get paid handsomely for it, or choose to take
our payment in the good feeling we get when the task is complete.
What impacted me more was who wasn’t in the room. Carrie
Hamblen spoke of 23% of our population who live in poverty and change the
economic structure for all of us by being supported by the government entities,
which is how I interpreted her claim. These people who didn’t show up for this
issue, don’t seem to show up for any issues. It seems they might be the same
people conservatives despise when tax increases are made, and whom someone at
the Community Foundation was talking about when they used the term
“institutional-racism.” These are the people I wanted to leave behind when I
graduated from NMSU and was ready to go grab my piece of the American dream.
When people jokingly butcher our state motto referring to New Mexico as “The
Land of Entrapment,” I believe it’s these very same people they’re talking
about. Somehow the line between these people and the rest of us has become
remarkably blurred, especially when looking at the state as a whole and the world’s
experience of what it means to be a New Mexican. When these businesses talked
about pride in our communities, it touched on a longing most of us will always
have until we do something drastic to revitalize the legacy of being a New
Mexican.
When I decided to come back home a year ago, I tried to
bring as many pieces of my community in Atlanta with me as possible. I was
scared that without that influence I would turn back in to a complacent New
Mexican. I am not opposed to Wal-Mart because I think they are evil; I believe
that we will continue to accept Wal-Mart as long as we feel we deserve them,
and similar “big-box” entities like this will be here in droves because of the
way we truly value our local businesses and their impact on our economic development.
It resembles the relationship of that buddy of yours who
deserves the world, but he keeps ending up being taken advantage of by women
who are only in it for themselves. You can see all the signs, tell them till
you’re blue in the face, but until they truly believe they deserve better, they
will have the same experience over and over again. They may cry as they play
the victim role, but at the end of the day you see them make the same exact
choice, so it’s hard to have pity for them.
As a health coach I experience this daily. People will tell
me they want something beautiful and inspiring, but when I see the amount of
effort they are putting in, versus what I told them it would take, I know what
they truly think they deserve. Respectively, I know that it will be evident
they will get it soon when they start making new choices.
In coaching I have learned that there is no way to make
someone change, and the best I can do is continue to set an example and create
as many opportunities to learn and expand awareness as possible. The more
engaged I am with my client, and the more solid I am in expressing my beliefs
and habits, the better chance they have of getting it, when they choose to. I
have had a selfish motive for getting other people healthy since day one; I
know that if I’m the only one demanding health, my access to health will be
limited and thwarted by the actions of people who don’t care as much as I do. Policies
and norms will be working against me if people are allowed to smoke in my
office, if emissions aren’t regulated, if food-labeling standards are lowered;
it all impacts my quality of life.
So, you can be all for free-enterprise, I think I am too,
and at the same time make a stance for the pride of the community you live in
and call home. There were people who showed up to this City Council meeting and
they talked about pride and about supporting local. With my personal interest
in living in a community I am excited to grow a business in and raise my
children in, I am ready to stand for creating something different in our
community. My interests in the Mountain
View Market Cooperative and what it means to our community, along with my new-found
inspiration for the work that the Community Foundation is doing to change
policies that limit health equity, gives me even more cause to voice my beliefs
and opinions.
Oscar Andrade of Pic
Qwik, Eugenia Montoya Ortega of La Fiesta Bakery, Jerry Silva of Save Mart, and
everyone else who showed up, made great presentations and called for supporting
local. Your voices were instrumental in the unanimous vote against the zoning
change. In a reactionary move we gathered quickly and powerfully, and won that
battle, but in the grand scheme of things, as a community in terms of economic
development, we are losing the war in an ever-expanding chasm of disparity. Seeing
how eager prominent figures in our community are to embrace another Wal-Mart, I
think we will be seeing Wal-Mart, Trader Joes, and all sorts of other ‘big-box’
stores coming in, syphoning money from our economy as they give us what we
want, keep us desperately satisfied, and make the chances of esteem for community
bleak.
It will take a proactive effort and real long-term
investments of time, energy, and fiscal, physical and social muscle to make a
lasting impact in the future of our community and its economic development. People
already passionately working on issues that intersect with this one, and the
collective voices and support could create the impact our community desperately
needs. Are you willing to connect and mobilize for a more advantageous future
that embraces the ideology of the Triple Bottom Line – that recognizes free
enterprise as a model that works and is open to giving the citizens a dignified
voice, and an engaging and inspired experience of community? If so please show
your dedication to creating a new legacy for New Mexicans by showing up when
your fellow local enterprises are gathering to make change. Can we count on you
when organizing in support of the buy local, health equity, and the cooperative
economic model campaigns? I would love to hear back from you and share ways
that we can cooperate.
Sincerely,
Siddeeq Shabazz
510-459-2671
smshabazz@gmail.com
