Shoefiti Marks “Fallen Soldiers”
Poetic Java correlates shoes with “Fallen Soldiers,” a term given to people killed on the streets of New York. Does Shoefiti memorialize dead Bronx residents?
Last night, driving back through New York, I got my answer. Somewhere in the Bronx, in a dark and lonely alleyway, if you looked straight up in to the sky, you would see one, two, ten pairs of tied together shoes hanging over the electric wires that span across the city. When I commented on it to my husband, Jason, I was ignorant of the fact of what it stood for, so my “Oh that’s different!” could have been taken as disrespect. However, since I was raised in a somewhat sheltered atmosphere, Jason understood my ignorance. His answer was that it was different and sad and when I asked what he meant, he told me that the shoes over the electrical lines were in honor of the “fallen soldiers.”
“Fallen soldiers.” Men, women, teens, and unfortunately, sometimes children & babies, who have lost the battle of the war of the streets in one way or another. Jason went on to tell me that this honors those “soldiers” not only in New York, but in California, Washington, DC, Philadelphia and a grand many other places that suffer from the battle of the streets. He told me that its worse when you see a pair of size 3 Nike’s than when you see a pair of size 12’s, but it’s sad nonetheless. I agree. When the shoes are a size 12, there’s more of a chance that those shoes belonged to someone who made a choice. The choice to live for the streets. When it’s a size 3, or worse yet, a “baby” Nike, the choice was never theirs. Fatalities of innocence through drive-bys, drug wars and addicted moms & dads. Sometimes we call these people innocent by standers. Sometimes we call them son, daughter or cousin. Sometimes we call them brother or sister. Sometimes we call them friend.
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