HIAWATHA AVENUE
A man shuffles along Hiawatha Avenue beside the spiffy $675.4 million Light Rail project. Shaggy hair protrudes from underneath a well-worn ball cap. His powder blue cap matches the Minnesota sky. His jeans, soiled with shit, hang low -- poised to fall from his scrawny butt. Where does this man journey? Where are we going as we pass him by?
SOUTH HIGH SCHOOL
I can feel the flush of anxiety as I walk into the high school. I am a stranger in a strange land, an ageing white man trying to scoot into young, hip hop South High. Inside a woman staffs a desk near a sign: "No entry without ID." I secure my Visitors Pass to the Main Office where my quest is to gain permission to enter the football field to photograph a mural.
I round the corner and encounter a large open area, The Commons. The space is jammed with hundreds of students during the lunch period. Young people of all shapes, colors, and dress greet my eyes. The noise, the buzz of conversation fills the air. I walk purposefully. Yet I want to stop and stare. I want to drink the sights of young people full of ideas and hopefully full of anticipation. I want to learn about them, about their homes, their dreams. I can feel their energy. It's almost primal, albeit institutional. I am reminded of prison bullpen. I glance up at a banner hanging down from the 2nd-floor balcony. "Zero Tolerance for Violence," it proudly declares. I'd be happy with tolerance.