#nolabeings

[nolabeings]

“I remember the day I became a father. I was young - 17. I had my first daughter. And all the things that I used to do - I stopped. I just love kids. I have seven kids now. My last daughter, she's 2 years old. That what brings me joy and happiness. My family. I've been working for Metro for over seven years now and we've been on strike for seven weeks now. 3:30 in the morning we get up from our beds and our kids and our wives to help the community get the garbage up. All we're asking for is better living wages - $15/hour. Right now we make $10.25. We asking for correct PPE. We asking for $150 of hazard pay - we not asking too much! That's all we asking for. But we can't get a response from them. We got trucks that leak hydraulic fluid all day. The trucks you be seeing - hydraulic fluid be leaking on us. But we manage to work so we can take care of our bills. It's like they don't even care about us. And we are exposed to the corona. We are frontline. They give us one pair of gloves. You gotta come early just to get a mask! When I go home, I get so much love from my kids that they run to me when they hear the door open. And I gotta say, 'Oh no you can't come on daddy right now because I'm exposed!' They want to give me a hug, but I can't. My kids, they got me on the right path. The love that they give me - I love 'em so much. That's where all my joy come from - them. Keeping them on the right path, making sure they do right at school. I give them whatever they want. I got honor roll students at home. That's all I want, 'cause I ain't graduate. It gives me joy to see what they accomplished with daddy there. That's why I'm trying to fight for better living wages. I want better for them. I want to buy me a nice house where my kids could run around in big ol' rooms! Let's get this together and make these jobs better. Not just the garbage! Everybody. Everybody that's being underpaid, mistreated! Once you pay your bills, you got little coins in your pocket. But what about something in the bank? It would be a better world.” #nolabeings #neworleans #supportthehoppers #happyfathersday —- Support: gofundme.com/f/helping-the-essential + follow @thecitywasteunion https://www.instagram.com/p/CBtp_p3gAdN/?igshid=1cigh9br6d0vf

[nolabeings]

“I'm a first generation Lebanese American. My parents both escaped during the Lebanese Civil War to find a better life. My mom says a lot of the French Quarter reminds her of Beirut - especially the Achrafieh neighborhood. Lebanon is probably the most beautiful country in the world… I'm definitely biased! And the people are super kind and resilient. But it's a country that has forever experienced so much heartache... Right now, I'm balancing working in the hospital (in New Orleans) and working on this campaign that my brother Peter and I started. At first the campaign was an effort to raise money for our family and neighbors in Beirut, Lebanon after the blast, because their neighborhood was significantly affected. But it got so successful within a couple of days that we expanded our efforts to helping more families devastated by explosion. We have a couple of my cousins in the neighborhood identifying people who really need help and money - and we're sending them money directly. It's pretty awesome. They basically find these people that our family knows, or that have been identified by the UN or NGOs that haven't been able to help to them yet. They send me their case, their name, pictures of their destroyed homes, and then I text them on WhatsApp or call them and I'm like "Hey, this is George - I'm with the campaign that my cousin Lea just showed you. I'm going to send you $500 through Western Union right now."⁠ There is this one old woman who was very close to my grandmother - she used to play with me and my brother when we were little. Her family’s house got destroyed. Right away, we called the family and said 'We're sending you money right now.' She sent me this really nice voice message over WhatsApp… 'Thank God, I can't believe this. We have just been praying every day.' I wish I were there right now because I want to help in person, but it feels good to do what we can from afar.” – To learn more about the GoFundMe fundraiser, visit https://gf.me/u/ynjiag (link in bio). #nolabeings #neworleans https://www.instagram.com/p/CECqnMUgpQi/?igshid=4rbtlq840767

[nolabeings]

“It’s a difficult time at the Orleans Public Defenders. A big portion of our budget comes from traffic tickets and court fees, which means that if people aren’t getting speeding tickets and our own clients aren’t being convicted, we have to make hard cuts, like cutting our expert fund, which pays for services like DNA testing and psychiatric exams – services that people with money can pay for themselves. For example, this is Emmanuel Benjamin. He was 17 when he was accused of firing a gun at a Mardi Gras parade, a very serious offense. It's a Mardi Gras parade, it's chaos. People are running everywhere, hiding or trying to get away. Emmanuel, he was there with family but with a group of friends at the time, and just like everyone else, when he heard the shot he ran. Then, an officer said, 'I saw him. This is the person that fired the gun.' The gun went off at least 5 blocks away from where Emmanuel was stopped. But this officer said that he was sure. When I met Emmanuel he said, 'I was there. I ran. But I didn't do it.’ He played football at his high school, got good grades, and had never been in serious trouble. But, that kind of crime has a mandatory minimum prison sentence of 3 years, and a trial would come down to this one police officer saying he was somehow certain it was Emmanuel, and us saying there’s no way he could really be sure it was him. But the expert fund changed everything. It paid for us to send the gun for DNA testing, and guess what? Someone’s DNA was on it, but it wasn’t Emmanuel’s. It could not have been him, and the officer was just plain wrong – but with this test, now we could prove it! Emmanuel’s case was dismissed and he didn't have to go to trial risking 3-15 years of his teenage life, because we could fund a simple DNA test. This service vanished because of our insecure funding structure – and sure, staff is furloughed and that's uncomfortable and hard for many people. But what each one of those people cares about is how it's affecting our clients. Emmanuel straight up did not do it, and an entire year and half of his high school life was spent worrying about going to prison for something that he didn't do.” #nolabeings https://www.instagram.com/p/CCblWPUg-8h/?igshid=1vm5sko5m1qlb

[nolabeings]

“My mom put me in violin when I was 7. At the time, I was doing ballet and karate. I saw that there was a violin class and it looked interesting. It was really hard. I thought I wouldn't be able to do it because I'm left-handed and you have to use your right hand. But I went through it. My teacher always said that I was really good and that I was his best (sight) reader in class, so I got faith in myself after he told me that a few times. Music is my thing. So I'm also learning how to play the guitar, the piano and I'm learning how to sing. When I'm playing the piano, sometimes the notes I play feel weird. Like, F and G are best friends and E got in the middle of it and now E and F are best friends and it's like a story but not exactly a story that's going on. I'm not exactly sure what I mean. It’s just like the notes are going through a situation. I was trying to write a song for violin and when I was trying to play it, I noticed that the rhythms didn't go well together, so I had to re-write it and it still didn't sound good. But I do enjoy writing music. I like figuring out what the notes are or if they're quarter rest, half rest, full rest or quarter note. I want to become a musician and I wanna play more than just four different instruments. The minimum of instruments I want to play is nine. I don't know why - I just feel like I want to do nine.” #nolabeings #neworleans https://www.instagram.com/p/CB00fJGgxk2/?igshid=1xgsv7stkpgm5

[nolabeings]

“People seem to consider me the new bartender. Suddenly everybody is home! And they're bored and just tired of their spouses. They don't know what to do with themselves. You knock on the door, somebody runs out and wants to talk to you for like, 10 minutes. I guess I'm like a therapist too. I have heard some crazy stories, but I'm going to keep those to myself. Sort of a client-patient privilege thing. Everybody's been affected in different ways. There's levels to it. There's people who are losing their businesses and there's people who work from home, where nothing has affected them. Yesterday I pulled up to make a delivery but the block was blocked off because somebody had just passed away. It was hard for me to get around because of the situation. The most fulfilling part of my day is bringing gifts to people. The mailman brings bills, I bring gifts. People actually get excited to see me. In the beginning [of the pandemic], I was really upset about some of the stuff that people were buying. Like, you really don't need this right now. But now I'm realizing if I can help people stay at home, that's kind of cool. Even if they are buying something silly and stupid. I would rather you stay home and order something stupid than go out and do something stupid and make everybody else have to wait this out much longer.” #nolabeings #neworleans #essentialworker https://www.instagram.com/p/B_F9EXFgj0J/?igshid=1lwhghf0aiya3

[nolabeings]

“I'm tired of waking up every day and seeing my people being slaughtered in the streets. For me, I want to be able to go out into the world and not fear that my daughter's life is at risk. I want to make sure that when I'm coming home at night, I AM going to come up at night, ultimately. I want to make sure that my brothers are out into the world doing what they want to do when they want to do it. Not being targeted for being black.⁠ Every story moves me. Sandra Bland: she's a black woman, I'm a black woman. George Floyd: he's a black man. I have three black brothers. I have black friends. I grew up in an all black community. When I see that my people are being treated unjustly, it hurts.⁠ I teach my daughter to treat everyone fairly, because at the end of the day, we're human first. Before any skin tone, before race, before anything else. You treat people the way that you want to be treated in life. Right?”⁠ “Yeah!”⁠ “I want to know that when I apply for a job, I'm not going to be discriminated against. I want to know that when my daughter goes to school, she's going to be treated fairly and get a fair education. I want to know that my daughter is going to grow up with the same opportunities in life as the kids who go off and their parents have millions of dollars. I want to know that because of the color of my daughter's skin, she will never be treated any different from anyone else. That's one of my main reasons I'm here. I'm sick of it. I'm tired of waking up every day - every other day - it's ridiculous. Today I'm here for George Floyd, but I'm also here for every other person that's been treated unjustly in this world. So for me it's deep. It's deep. I demand change. It's not fair.” #nolabeings #neworleans #blacklivesmatter https://www.instagram.com/p/CA5tgOngjf5/?igshid=15zbqvxhk96mk

[nolabeings]

“I knew the update was going to happen December 16th at 4 pm. At this point, I had only applied to Yale, because with Yale, it's restrictive Early Action, which means you can only apply to one school early. I was like, 'Okay, you know, the odds are way against me. This is kind of a long shot.' I was starting to think about other schools I would apply to, not really preparing my applications, but looking into it. December 16th came and I stress-baked three batches of cookies and 60 cupcakes. I was either going to decorate the cupcakes with 'Yale 2024' or I was going to not, and was just going to have Christmas cupcakes to cheer me up. Four o'clock came, and my friends were there with me, but my mom and dad are at work. So we're all on FaceTime, and the internet's not working of course, because that's the moment where it needs to crash. And, I click 'View Status Update' and a screen comes up that it's buffering. And then the link to play the video pops up, and I play it, and it's the Bulldogs fight song. And Mom and Dad start bawling on the phone, and I start crying and we're reading through the letter. I kind of knew going into Yale with their financial aid and with my mom's income, it would definitely be cheaper even than going to LSU, but this year was the first year that they kind of upped the qualifications for full tuition and we happened to fall in that income range. So, they're actually paying me $2,000 to move in! So that was part of the tears. It was the night of the Saints game, Monday Night Football, and my mom was working downtown right by the Superdome. She takes the bus to and from work and so she's trying to get on the bus and she sends me this picture of her surrounded by people and the caption is: 'When you're just trying to get home to kiss your baby 'cause she just got into Yale, but there's traffic and football.' It was so sweet. And then I decorated all the cupcakes with 'Yale' and I gave them to all my teachers and my classmates.” #nolabeings #neworleans #classof2020 https://www.instagram.com/p/CBRNws3gL_q/?igshid=d7vnt01c405y

[nolabeings]

“The day before yesterday I was pretty down because two of my friends had just lost their jobs and I was feeling it. I took a walk, and I think even just with the top of my face showing, it was showing that I was upset. And this guy down on Dauphine was on his porch, and he saw me walk by and he was like 'Hey, honey, you alright?' And I was like 'Yea, I mean it’s a…rough day.' And he bent down and he picked up one of those packets of Clorox wipes and threw them to me. And I was like 'What the hell?' And then he threw me a beer can and he was like 'Just wipe the can with the wipes and drink it and you’ll feel better.' I’m like, Okay, well that’s one way of coping with it. There’s a way of caring for people around here, it's very spontaneous and feels very generous. And those little things, they go around… because then I was in a better mood… and I was able to say ‘Hey, how you doin?’ to everybody I walked past on their porch, which I was too lost in my head to do before that. Part of the reason why I volunteer at the Covid testing center is because I don’t like sitting on my ass, but I also want to feel like I'm fighting back. And then something like this happens, and that’s also a way of fighting back. You fight back with minuscule acts of kindness and you pass them around. And I think people around here are good at that.” #nolabeings #neworleans Thank you to @rocksferjocks for transcribing this story 💕 https://www.instagram.com/p/B_0WYNKggge/?igshid=yl8ma92pghr8