citizen

It's late Friday night and the house across the street is testing the maximum volume of their house speakers. What do you do? You see someone finish their 1 liter of Pepsi, and throw it down next to 7 other cans and bottles. What do you do? The dangerous road you walk down, still has no sidewalk. What do you do?

The answer to these questions for many of us is to wish someone else would take care of it. So we either sit and fester, sit and complain, or sit and call the authorities (the city, the cops, etc.). This answer is indicative of how our consumeristic culture gets played out in our daily lives. We see and believe ourselves to be consumers of a system, waiting to be served.

Presently, I am at an AmeriCorps/community development training. The grant I received is focused on boostering volunteerism in my neighborhood. With this focus, a goal is to change the attitude of seeing ourselves as consumers to begin seeing ourselves as citizens. A citizen, in my mind, is one who takes responsibility for the condition of their neighborhood. My hope is that citizenship will increase in my neighborhood as a of this grant.

I can imagine a better neighborhood than first described. So, it's late Friday night and the house across the street is testing the maximum volume of their house speakers. I can imagine a neighbor calling that house, because of an already established relationship, instead of calling the cops. Or, you see someone finish their 1 liter of Pepsi, and throw it down next to 7 other cans and bottles. I can imagine a neighbor asking that person to properly dispose of the trash, and if "the bird is flipped" knowing that the citizen-led regular trash cleanup will help keep the streets clean. And when the dangerous road you walk down still has no sidewalk, I can imagine a group of neighbors putting pressure on the local government to act, or seeking funds and approval for private neighborhood action. I would much rather live in this second neighborhood, where my neighbors are empowered. You?