‘If Ithaca is so great, why is it hard to live here?’

Actor and director Godfrey Simmons, of Ithaca, asked Monday, why do I still feel so bad if I live in Ithaca?

Simmons, the artistic director of the Civic Ensemble, was the guest speaker at the 2015 MLK Jr. Day of Celebration Community Luncheon, held in the packed gym at Beverly J. Martin School. He spoke on the theme of Mythaca: Facts and Fiction.

Describing Ithaca as a town with lots of answers, Simmons asked why, in a town that seems to appear on every top 10 list of great places to live, can life be so difficult? “Who did they talk to?” Simmons asked.

Simmons drew on the experiences of J.R. Clairborne, the advocacy coordinator for Loaves and Fishes and their clients’ struggles. Also speaking were Yolanda Josephs, who works at Tompkins County Community Action, and Gibrian Hagood, recently with the Tompkins County Department of Health.

Josephs spoke of having to choose between health care and keeping a roof over her head despite having a job.

“Of course I keep a roof over my head,” Josephs said.

Hagood, an Ithaca native, described after moving back to the area, being shocked to find how people who grew up in Ithaca were now priced out of the city.

“You’ve got to make it affordable for the people that make Ithaca a wonderful place that people want to come to,” Hagood said.

Simmons highlighted the contrasts of life in Tompkins County, asking, what is the promise of Ithaca? Is it the college graduates who become involved and stay or is it the single mother walking along Route 79 with two babies because the bus doesn’t run at the right time?

He continued asking: what are the right questions to ask? He related that Albert Einstein said that if he had a minute to save the world he would spend 59 seconds trying to ask the right question. While he said he might spend less time finding the question, he sees Ithacans, including himself, spending too much time giving answers rather than asking questions.

Simmons spoke of King’s final speech about the good Samaritan and his questions about the thoughts of the participants in the parable.

Dr. King tried to determine the questions of those who did not help. “If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?”

Building on the word of Martin Luther King Jr., Simmons sees our question today as, “If I do not stop to help this person, what will happen to me?”

“We’re all connected, what affects you affects me,” Simmons said.

“Questions are really hard, but that’s I think that’s where the promise of Ithaca resides, in finding the right question.” Simmons said.

According to Simmons, top tens and myths are window dressing designed to pull in the masses. It’s easy to ridicule them them and dismiss them, but there is something in them.

“There is something wonderful and magical here,” Simmons said. “I think it’s based on that promise, the promise of Ithaca as a place of peace, civic engagement and builders of bridges.”

According to Simmons, we should live in the questions and tough conversations. We may not have the answers, but shouldn’t worry about the top tens and myths, but rather concern ourselves with each other.

“I’m going to try to ask more questions that I don’t know the answers to,” Simmons said.

“I think that what’s Dr King was after, how can we be together and find the right questions so we can walk together.”

Follow Simon Wheeler on Twitter @IJPhotos.

Organizers

The day was organized by the Greater Ithaca Activities Center; the Multicultural Resource Center; the Center for Transformative Action; the Cornell Public Service Center; the GreenStar Cooperative Market, Ithaca College's Office of Multicultural Affairs, Campus Life at Cornell University; Ithaca College’s Center for Student Leadership and Involvement; and Cornell Cooperative Extension of TC and community members.