DETROIT -- Keiara Bell may be, at this moment, the best-known example in Detroit of what teachers and ministers refer to as the "good child."
The 13-year-old came to light as the schoolgirl who schooled City Councilwoman Monica Conyers on civics and civility after she called Kenneth Cockrel Jr., the balding City Council president, "Shrek."
"You're an adult," Keiara told Conyers with unexpected poise and aplomb. "You have to know your boundaries."
The 13-year-old came to light as the schoolgirl who schooled City Councilwoman Monica Conyers on civics and civility after she called Kenneth Cockrel Jr., the balding City Council president, "Shrek."
"You're an adult," Keiara told Conyers with unexpected poise and aplomb. "You have to know your boundaries."
Conyers stewed. "Well, I'm not going to be combative with you, young lady."
The Detroit News video of the incident made its way around the world through YouTube. Keiara has become something of a diplomat for the beleaguered city; her grace and maturity seemed to show that not is all wrong. The Wall Street Journal referred to her as a folk hero when it featured her on its front page, a place normally reserved for Nobel laureates and captains of industry. She's made an appearance on CBS' "The Early Show," and now Jon Stewart is calling.
But spend a few days in her west side neighborhood, and you realize all is not well in the world of Keiara Bell.
It is a hard place to live, she says, one of the hardest quarters in one of the hardest American cities. Some nights she reads Proverbs in bed by penlight. Some nights she cries.
"I'm ashamed to be poor," she says while sitting in the secondhand taxi her father, Harry, recently purchased as the family's second car.
Through the windshield, she watches as her father and mother, Marsha, sell candy from the trunk of a rattletrap Cadillac. Candy brings the family nickels and quarters and goes toward luxuries like milk and gasoline.
This is the neighborhood where her father grew up, just off Lipton, a few blocks from her own: rotting houses, boarded windows, children with dirty clothing, rampant crime. There is no candy store, much less a grocery store, for miles in any direction.
More than once on this day, Harry gives children candy for free. "How can you turn a child away?" Harry asks. "God, after all, says love one another."
His daughter watches this good man sick with a bad heart. "I'm not ashamed of my family, though, because we persevere and whatever we have we share," Keiara says, sitting in the front seat. "But so many people here are resigned to being here. It's like they like it. I'm tired of seeing my cousins being shot over misunderstandings. People being poor. Living like this. It's so hard being an African-American girl here. It's so messed up. I just want out."
A hard neighborhood
She lives off Livernois, south of Davison. It's a place, according to statistics, where a child younger than 18 years old is twice as likely to die than the average American child. Unemployment is more than three times the national average. A third of the children here live in poverty. Three-quarters of the families have a single parent.
Keiara does not bring books home because there are not enough books at school to go around. They stay in the classroom and are shared by all students at Courtis Elementary/Middle School. Their day begins with a patdown and a metal detector.
"The books are old, the substitute teachers don't come; it's a system in shambles," says her mathematics teacher, Thomas Smith. "You do what you can do, teach what you can teach and at least see to it that they get a warm breakfast."
The eighth-graders in Keiara's class will cross the threshold of childhood into adulthood as they go off to high school in the fall. When asked, they tell you they hold the same aspirations and anxieties as children anywhere. They want to be filmmakers and pediatricians and engineers. Keiara wants to be a criminal defense lawyer.
They worry about getting tossed in a garbage can by the high school seniors, getting lost in the halls, spilling punch on the homecoming dress. Keiara worries about losing her path and falling into the darkness of the streets. It is like trying to construct a good life from warped materials.
In a simmering pot like this city, people want to take their children and leave. One friend of Keiara's is moving to Mississippi with her grandparents, another is going to Wisconsin. "It makes me sad it has to be that way," she says.
The Bells moved from their old neighborhood near Keiara's school because they had been burgled one time too many. The last time, the burglar stole her birth certificate. Now, their old neighbor, Carolyn Shauntee, who was something of a grandmother to the family, locks herself in, alone at night. The house the Bells once lived in stands across the street from her neat Cape Cod, abandoned and sagging.
"Keiara shows you can raise a kid in the neighborhood and still have her be successful," Shauntee says.
Looking for a way out
Keiara lies in bed most evenings, trying to work out her escape in her mind. She's been accepted to Cass Tech, the city's premier public high school. Then Stanford, the dream goes. Then Harvard for law school. Then a good job in an office tower. Her father tells her to be not so serious. Be a child for a while, he says.
But it is serious, Keiara answers. There is no time to be a child.
"The pressure is built up," Harry says.
He is unemployed, hobbled by a congestive heart failure and diabetes. His wife has asthma and no insurance. They make it on a Social Security check and the candy. "There's nothing. No money. No job. No prospect of a job. It boils up and you want to explode. But we don't because we have God. He's our friend. Our hope. And he don't charge."
How to raise a good kid, much less four of them, is a matter of commitment, he says. The phone machine at the Bell residence gives the first clue. In the background, Keiara sings gospel music while her mother gives a prayer and an affirmation. "Praise the Lord."
There is no television in the family room. Her day is spent in school, then locked in the house, looking out onto the park where the children who gave up school a long time ago wander aimlessly.
Boys? There are no boys. The only gift a boy can bring at this age, her mother says, is a baby and poverty. The family spends 15 hours a week in church. Marsha and their two daughters sing in choir; Harry and their son, Anthony, play in the band.
"Keiara is by my side, always," Marsha says. "We don't want her getting mixed up in the drama out there."
After church on a recent Sunday, Harry sits out front on the bumper of his Cadillac, selling candy with the help of Keiara.
"She's my baby and I want to hold on to her as long as I can," he says. "But I watched that video with Mrs. Conyers and I realized she's not my baby anymore. I'm proud of my young woman."
The Detroit News video of the incident made its way around the world through YouTube. Keiara has become something of a diplomat for the beleaguered city; her grace and maturity seemed to show that not is all wrong. The Wall Street Journal referred to her as a folk hero when it featured her on its front page, a place normally reserved for Nobel laureates and captains of industry. She's made an appearance on CBS' "The Early Show," and now Jon Stewart is calling.
But spend a few days in her west side neighborhood, and you realize all is not well in the world of Keiara Bell.
It is a hard place to live, she says, one of the hardest quarters in one of the hardest American cities. Some nights she reads Proverbs in bed by penlight. Some nights she cries.
"I'm ashamed to be poor," she says while sitting in the secondhand taxi her father, Harry, recently purchased as the family's second car.
Through the windshield, she watches as her father and mother, Marsha, sell candy from the trunk of a rattletrap Cadillac. Candy brings the family nickels and quarters and goes toward luxuries like milk and gasoline.
This is the neighborhood where her father grew up, just off Lipton, a few blocks from her own: rotting houses, boarded windows, children with dirty clothing, rampant crime. There is no candy store, much less a grocery store, for miles in any direction.
More than once on this day, Harry gives children candy for free. "How can you turn a child away?" Harry asks. "God, after all, says love one another."
His daughter watches this good man sick with a bad heart. "I'm not ashamed of my family, though, because we persevere and whatever we have we share," Keiara says, sitting in the front seat. "But so many people here are resigned to being here. It's like they like it. I'm tired of seeing my cousins being shot over misunderstandings. People being poor. Living like this. It's so hard being an African-American girl here. It's so messed up. I just want out."
A hard neighborhood
She lives off Livernois, south of Davison. It's a place, according to statistics, where a child younger than 18 years old is twice as likely to die than the average American child. Unemployment is more than three times the national average. A third of the children here live in poverty. Three-quarters of the families have a single parent.
Keiara does not bring books home because there are not enough books at school to go around. They stay in the classroom and are shared by all students at Courtis Elementary/Middle School. Their day begins with a patdown and a metal detector.
"The books are old, the substitute teachers don't come; it's a system in shambles," says her mathematics teacher, Thomas Smith. "You do what you can do, teach what you can teach and at least see to it that they get a warm breakfast."
The eighth-graders in Keiara's class will cross the threshold of childhood into adulthood as they go off to high school in the fall. When asked, they tell you they hold the same aspirations and anxieties as children anywhere. They want to be filmmakers and pediatricians and engineers. Keiara wants to be a criminal defense lawyer.
They worry about getting tossed in a garbage can by the high school seniors, getting lost in the halls, spilling punch on the homecoming dress. Keiara worries about losing her path and falling into the darkness of the streets. It is like trying to construct a good life from warped materials.
In a simmering pot like this city, people want to take their children and leave. One friend of Keiara's is moving to Mississippi with her grandparents, another is going to Wisconsin. "It makes me sad it has to be that way," she says.
The Bells moved from their old neighborhood near Keiara's school because they had been burgled one time too many. The last time, the burglar stole her birth certificate. Now, their old neighbor, Carolyn Shauntee, who was something of a grandmother to the family, locks herself in, alone at night. The house the Bells once lived in stands across the street from her neat Cape Cod, abandoned and sagging.
"Keiara shows you can raise a kid in the neighborhood and still have her be successful," Shauntee says.
Looking for a way out
Keiara lies in bed most evenings, trying to work out her escape in her mind. She's been accepted to Cass Tech, the city's premier public high school. Then Stanford, the dream goes. Then Harvard for law school. Then a good job in an office tower. Her father tells her to be not so serious. Be a child for a while, he says.
But it is serious, Keiara answers. There is no time to be a child.
"The pressure is built up," Harry says.
He is unemployed, hobbled by a congestive heart failure and diabetes. His wife has asthma and no insurance. They make it on a Social Security check and the candy. "There's nothing. No money. No job. No prospect of a job. It boils up and you want to explode. But we don't because we have God. He's our friend. Our hope. And he don't charge."
How to raise a good kid, much less four of them, is a matter of commitment, he says. The phone machine at the Bell residence gives the first clue. In the background, Keiara sings gospel music while her mother gives a prayer and an affirmation. "Praise the Lord."
There is no television in the family room. Her day is spent in school, then locked in the house, looking out onto the park where the children who gave up school a long time ago wander aimlessly.
Boys? There are no boys. The only gift a boy can bring at this age, her mother says, is a baby and poverty. The family spends 15 hours a week in church. Marsha and their two daughters sing in choir; Harry and their son, Anthony, play in the band.
"Keiara is by my side, always," Marsha says. "We don't want her getting mixed up in the drama out there."
After church on a recent Sunday, Harry sits out front on the bumper of his Cadillac, selling candy with the help of Keiara.
"She's my baby and I want to hold on to her as long as I can," he says. "But I watched that video with Mrs. Conyers and I realized she's not my baby anymore. I'm proud of my young woman."
Maybe she's a crystal or indigo child, but anybody that shuts Maniac Conyers down is def on my team. I hope and wish this bright young sista the best for the future. We need queens like herself for the golden age and future.
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