Dr. Marisela Gomez and the Save Middle East Action Committee
Social Health Concepts and Practice (SHCP) is an independent consulting organization based in East Baltimore, Maryland offering the opportunity for individuals, communities, organizations, and institutions to identify and understand the bridge between the health of the individual and society. In partnership with communities and engaging in action research and practice since 2006, SHCP facilitates alternative ways to transform existing oppressive and hierarchical models of individual and community change. Members engage in community listening sessions-through door-to-door engagement- aimed at understanding the needs of the community. Our understanding stems from the premise that the norms of society shape our mental, physical, and spiritual health and sets the framework for resultant disparities between those with power and those without-in all aspects of life. In turn, our individual selves can either continue to take on these norms in each generation, or transform ourselves to re-construct these existing social norms. Rebuilding healthy selves and communities can occur only when we transform oppressive norms- embedded in our selves and institutions- which maintain the cycle of segregation and inequality. Our collective transformed selves become the transformed society-moving toward a new norm of balance, equity, and sustainability.
Website: www.mariselabgomez.com
TEDx Talk
BIO
Marisela B. Gomez is a community activist, author, public health professional, and physician scientist. She received a BS and MS from the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, a PHD, MD, and MPH from the Johns Hopkins University. Of Afro-Latina ancestry, she has spent more than 20 years in Baltimore involved in social justice activism and community building/health research and practice. Some of her most notable work includes working on and leading the Save Middle East Action Committee which was created by residents living north of the Johns Hopkins Medical Center in an area called Middle East in response to learning the area would become the future site of a $1.8 billion redevelopment project known as the John Hopkins Biotech Park. Marisela was interestingly positioned in this battle as she was a resident of the area and a community member of the Johns Hopkins Medical Center. She would later go on to write a book about the organizing experience, the historical disinvestment of Middle East, and the ongoing consequences of race, economic, and institutional power inequities faced by marginalized communities. Since 2004, she has been studying and practicing mindfulness and other forms of meditation around the world. Most recently, she’s been sharing her meditation practices with activists doing racial justice and social justice work through retreats and workshops with the Baltimore community.
PROFILE
Dr. Marisela Gomez speaks with a serene calm, a sharp intellect and exudes the wisdom of a seasoned monk. Born in Belize, a woman of color and a daughter of immigrants, Gomez has reached the pinnacle of success, as defined by dominant culture, despite a childhood of poverty. Her impressive list of academic distinctions include an MS from the University of New Mexico and an MD, MPH and PhD from the prestigious John Hopkins University. Yet this would not be how she would define her success.
In early 2001, while still at John Hopkins, Gomez gathered with a group of about 100 people in a church in the Middle East area of East Baltimore, in response to a massive development project by John Hopkins, which threatened to relocate 750 households by eminent domain. The university’s aim was to build a residential area and biotech park across 88 acres just north of its medical campus (Jacobson 2013). For years Gomez had watched structural and institutional changes take place across the city dictated by white paternalism that fueled development as well as the abandonment of Baltimore’s way of life as an historic black city. She explains that visions for real estate development, urban development, and community development, are usually defined by the predominant white lifestyle and assumed by those who design and implement such projects to be what every person should or do ascribe to. Gomez declares, “Development is gentrification, as opposed to gentrification being an outcome of development, when existing residents are not decision-makers.” (Gomez 2017) The development driven by large corporations and institutions, such as John Hopkins, has continued to uphold the inequities of pain and discrimination experienced by its original residents. Gomez describes that in spaces of conflict, disparity, and inequity, people internalize the message that their lives are not acceptable because they are not representative of mainstream American culture. This leaves people feeling isolated and they turn inward in their suffering. The social cohesion in these environments is not one that brings people together, but instead alienates people in their perceived “otherness”, affecting their ability to build social capital together (Gomez 2017) (Gomez and Muntaner 2005). When development projects move forward without community engagement, it only exacerbates these disparities and separation.
This time was different. Gomez and her community of 100 residents sat down to share and listen to each other. In some cases, this was the first time neighbors were talking with neighbors. People were afraid. Most had first learned about the likelihood of being displaced through the newspaper. Developers were persistent and intimidating, pressuring homeowners to sell their houses at below market rates (they were initially offered a mere $22,500 for their homes in 2001 during the growing real estate bubble) (Jacobson 2013). They had no idea where they would go, what they could afford, or how they would handle changes in schools and work without access to transportation. Their coming together to talk about their pain for the first time was extraordinarily healing and provided the energy that seeded political action.
An organization was created, the Save Middle East Action Committee (SMEAC), which Gomez went on to direct in 2003. It was designed to operate with deep values and intentional protocols to uphold with mindfulness and integrity the process of participatory engagement in opposing John Hopkins. The organization committed to total honesty, transparency, deep listening and respect so that they could remain solid in the face of the goliath without falling prey to their anger. Gomez is very clear that if activists do not embody and abide by such inner values they are at risk of adopting the same divisive and aggressive tactics abused by their counterpoints. Even still, she recognizes that engaging anger is effective. Those who would suggest otherwise may not have spent time on the ground in these environments. Often circumstances have very real consequences which may require urgent action fueled by outrage – people will be ousted from their homes, shot by police, or denied opportunity. She does not take a black or white, reductionist view that approaches must always appear peaceful. However, what is important is that tactics must be driven not by hatred, but by an ethos of integrity, ethics, compassion, and peace. It is mindfulness that teaches us the discernment that serves to identify the appropriate action in each moment.
SMEAC worked tirelessly to challenge Hopkins’ development process and bring local community needs to their attention. They were able to push back, holding up the project until developers agreed to pay market value for properties and agree not to demolish houses next door to existing residents until there was adequate mitigation of exposure to lead and other contaminants in the dust. Community members raised public awareness in the media to expose inconsistencies and when developers treated them in ways that were demeaning. Under pressure from SMEAC, the city passed a law that required people to have a third source of affordable housing before being asked to relocate. They realized they could not halt the entire project, but that they wanted to ensure it was carried out as equitably as possible. In the end, the project was implemented and 750 people were displaced (most final relocation packages averaged $250,000), leaving less than 15 residents still remaining (Jacobson 2013). But the process was conducted very differently than it would have been without SMEAC’s influence, and in the process they built substantial social capital that helped to begin to heal long-standing neglect and inequity.
While SMEAC has disbanded, Gomez continues to consult with other local efforts through her organization, Social Health Concepts, to encourage the process of deep dialogue for healing and community-driven change. She is now working with East Baltimore residents to acquire a church hall and a dozen row houses to begin rebuilding the “Beloved Village”, a collectively-owned, intentional community focused on black and brown people involved in justice and love. It will include incubator spaces, a community event space and living residences. Gomez states that the project, which invites outside involvement, allows “historic residents to become shareholders and co-owners in the redevelopment process, and encourages real access to wealth building. Love in action!” (M. Gomez 2017)