wild wild southwest (pennsylvania)

I live on the edge of civilization, the rugged heart of America. A place where east meets west and where the people and wildlife can be equally vicious. I reside in the heart of Steeler nation. Pittsburgh is my new frontier, and I, a sort of [black] cowgirl adventurer ready to tame this town.

An avowed urbanite, I migrated here from the southeast on a quest for intellectual gold. (I attended Carnegie Mellon for grad school). The truth is, I found that and so much more. The markedly blue collar culture was shocking to me, who was so used to living in bustling city centers like New York, D.C., and LA. There is little space for pretension here, seeing that this once great city was crucified by the collapse of the steel industry. The funny thing, though, is that Pittsburgh is so far back in the past that its actually in the future. Pride, then, is lavished on the town's teams and expressed in bars and dive joints, offices and living rooms throughout the metropolitan area. Sports is the universal unifier across class, race and religious. Primitive. (Or progressive).

The natives are an entire case study in and of themselves. They are largely divided between black and white, and each subset has their own language. When you aren't trying to figure out exactly what someone is saying, you wonder where they got that accent (and can they return it to where they got it from). I am fascinated by the black population here, mainly because I am black but also because it is quite unlike that of any other city. African Americans in SWPA are the inheritors of some slammin' history (August Wilson, Teenie Harris). However, isolation and poverty have proven effective in relegating these communities to small pockets around the city. Homewood is reminiscent of Deadwood, in my opinion.

My hope as an explorer is to help bring some vision, some light, some order to the place during my time here. Striving to share my talent and youth is my aim, and being fly is my game. So until next time, yippi ki yi yay.

T.