My Dream
Joy, Dream, Hope – all forms of the dreams!
My Sister Grannies, a group of 8 women who are all grandmothers, write every month. Our writing is not for generating ideas, but rather a way to get us to discuss the topic. We take turns, each reading what she has written.
This month our topic was Heaven. I poured over this idea for a while, and finally wrote this:
I have a dream! Many Black and brown people will have their daily needs met for the first time. All needs, including food, clothing, shelter, and a safe space, will be overseen by the city where they live, or by their county. The daily needs contain enough clothing for every season.
Their housing needs are also covered by the city or the county. A minimum house or apartment will have enough rooms for all the people who live in it. I imagine it will have a living space, a dining area, a kitchen, and enough bedrooms.
The coverage comes with a job! That job will pay at least $15 an hour. Together with the job comes a caretaker for the youngest children until they are old enough to be in school. And the caretaker is on call when they are out of school, so they are cared for at home.
OK, I can stop dreaming now!
I don’t have to go back so many years. In the 1930s and 40s workers were united by the need for a strong union. White and Black people were welcomed, though the Black people were few. In the 1950s and 60s the Black people were more, but they got put into levels or ranks. So they competed with each other, not with the company. More recently, the time has not seemed right for the workers.
The union had worked hard, but not hard enough. When the vote came recently in an Amazon plant in Alabama, the workers failed to form a union.
Degrees of the dream!
Who Will Help?
Ron Pollack is not a household name. But perhaps he should be! He has been an activist for decades. He says, “If we didn’t have these sharp divisions based on race, we could make enormous progress in terms of making sure that people are not hurting as badly as they are, or deprived of what clearly are the necessities of life. And I would like to think it was possible if we had a sense of social solidarity.”
So far, we have not developed this sense of social solidarity. What would it take?
I think that the basis of this idea is a sense that we need to be real to each other. We must interact together and form a basis of trust, and of course that involves getting over racism.
l think it is a great dream and not realizable now. But we can hope.
Heather McGhee says that the root of the issue is this: Who is an American? And what are we to each other? We have to embrace the new birth of freedom, rooted in the knowledge that “we” belongs to all of us!
“MY DREAM”
Other students in the contest.
In 2019 a 10-year girl gave her interpretation of her dream for Nigeria. She said she wishes not to be afraid of kidnappers. She hopes to go out without someone running her down. In her description of her travels, she lists many items. I’ve only included a few here.
- Improving the state of roads
- Reducing the stress of vehicle importation
- Check corruption
- Underground trains
- Government mass transit schemes
- Make air travel more functional
Jaida Roberts is a ten-year-old pupil of Corona School Victoria Island (Lagos, Nigeria). This piece is her submission for the Jordan Hill October 2019 Writing Challenge.
International Centre for Investigative Reporting
The Centre for Investigative Reporting has included instances of Nigerian media accusing journalists. Since 2016 to today, the report shows many journalists under arrest. From the #EndSars of nearly a year ago, to even further back, the Centre bears witness to these arrests.
Nigeria is gaining a reputation as a dangerous spot! Now, with Twitter suspended, the country is certainly deemed not exactly safe. Some of the journalists who were held by the state are now trying to get some sort of coverage for their time in detention.
