How Caucasian Became My Preferred Pronoun
I felt inspired to write this while residing at one of NYC’s most exclusive addresses.
I'm wondering if any one who feels they know NYC will recognize it.
It's called Delta Manor, and its located at on Beach Avenue in The Bronx. There are not many Beach Avenues in NYC.
Well? I can see from the blank llooks on peoples' faces that none of you do.
Not to worry. You may know NYC as well as any ex-mayor without knowing this.
Delta Manor is a men’s homeless shelter. It’s located in the South Bronx. There is no beach.
But allow me to add this qualifier.
On any given night there are more than 60,000 persons living in homeless shelters throughout the five boroughs that make up NYC. Ho.meless shelters are a new growth industry. You’re forgiven for not keeping up.
Right now I am living in a hotel in The Theater District, where I lived 30 years ago with a family who produced America’s only world-class theatrical opera, Porgy and Bess.
In the mid-1980s we were summarily evicted via an eminent domain statute in order to make way for ’The Times Square Redevelopment Project’.
At that time Times Square was a 24-7 Red Light District. Now it’s a corporate theme park featuring Mickey and Marvel Comic Book Heroes.
But that’s a story for another time. Promise.
First I want to describe for you, How Caucasian Became My Preferred Pronoun.
In the winter of 2020, I was transferred to Delta Manor from the Bellevue Homeless Assessment Shelter on 30th St. where every housing displaced person in NYC starts out
At Bellevue they attempt to assess who you are, what you need, and then they send you to what they consider to be the next right next shelter for you. You are on your merry way to private affordable housing that doesn’t exist in NYC. (Who’s assessing whom?)
What makes Delta Manor so exclusive is that its one hundred residents are there because they’ve been diagnosed with severe psychiatric disorders.
I was sent there by mistake. If I see any eyes rolling I will jump and show you just how not crazy I am.
Here’s what happened. While I was residing at the Bellevue Men’s Homeless Shelter in Manhattan I wrote and published an article equating the NYC shelter system to the Russian Gulag. Using Poverty to Suppress People.
The connection seemed obvious to me and, well, also to the leader of the Latin Kings, who ran Bellevue at this time, and who was staying in the same dorm room at Bellevue as me.
Monsieur Leader read the article because I wanted him too. I respected him and wanted his respect in return. Mutual respect is the main form of currency and the only thing that guarantees your safety in places like Bellevue.
It’s certainly not the minimum wage paid security guards. I’m going to disrupt the flow here, briefly, to tell a related story.
One evening while I was lying in my bed – I secured the bed directly across from the only door in and out of our dorm room -- a security guard meandered into our room. He had no reason to come in. I suspect he just got bored hanging out in the hall.
Leader stares right at him: “Stop, turn around and get your ass outta here! I will go back to jail in a heartbeat before I let a Punk Ass Bitch like you rule my world for even a moment!’
Wow was all I could think. Such precision, eloquence.
Leader sent a few of his minions out to boost me a new wardrobe. ‘We wan are writer looking good Man!’
But, alas, notoriety is fleeting and fame is short-lived. The next thing I know its 2 AM and I’m schlepping into Delta Manor, or as I came to affectionately call it, The Make Believe Ballroom in the Bronx.
All I knew of the Bronx – besides going to Yankees games with my dad and brother as a kid – was what everyone sees on the news. People getting their butts asses shot off on a regular basis. I was too wired to sleep so I sat alone in the community room staring out into space.
Then a Puerto Rican Brother named Face comes up on me. “You look like you need to relax, man.”
“No shit.”
“I got you man.”
We go back out the front door. It’s starting to get light out. Face takes me to a bodega down the street.
Most bodegas are owned by Arabs, Muslims. It must have been one of their holy days. They were closed though we could hear them praying inside.
“Fucking Bullshit!” face exclaims loudly so those inside can hear him.
“Ease up man, I plead, . It’s probably a holy day or something...”
“I don’t give a ….fuck. They could make some coffee then go back to that mumbo jumbo crapshit.”
I didn’t know yet about the exclusive nature of Delta Manor. Wouldn’t have made a difference. I severed my ties to normal discourse the moment I checked in to Bellevue. Its a portal to another less wordy more direct way of saying things one of the charms if you choose to see it that way. I did.
We go to a more secular bodega. Face does his thing; I do mine. Fine. But then when I go to check out.
‘Face. Come ova here please. Last time I bought these little cigars they was 5 bucks. They chargin me 15.”
One of the reasons they call him Face is because his facial expressions are so pliable. He was once a professional clown in The Big Apple Circus. His face burns bright red and implodes.
‘What’s wrong whichu?’ he demands of the bodega owner. ‘You treat my friend, my Brother here with respect. He might be a Caucasian, but he’s not White!!”’