Does this crap go on in your community? This isn’t my neighborhood, exactly, because I live in a modest log cabin in the woods, not a million dollar home next to the County Club. But it’s basically my hood because it’s close enough that I pass through the township almost daily and my son interacts with these parents’ kids everywhere from school to summer camp to in his sports leagues.
We don’t really have the option of freaking out whenever a black kid rides a bike on our street because the family across the street is black and they ride their bikes all the time. But, then, we’re not looking to live in a whites only community. And we’re not racists.
But I’ll tell you something. The way the police are acting lately, I would be hesitant to call them even if I did suspect some black kids in my neighborhood were up to no good. The last thing I want to do is get someone killed just because I had a suspicion.
I’ll tell you another thing, too. When I first moved out of the city to the suburbs, I was very self-conscious and uncomfortable in all-white settings, whether it was a restaurant bar or a trip to the book store. I don’t even notice it anymore, and now I feel more nervous in the city among more diverse communities because I no longer know the neighborhoods or which blocks are sketchy.
It’s really subtle how this works on your brain. It’s gradual and subconscious, but fear is definitely the main driver. When you live in a bustling diverse city with high crime rates, you develop a high tolerance for low levels of danger. When you live in Berwyn next to the Country Club, you have no tolerance whatsoever for even the most minimal theoretical danger. Even with all my life experiences and personal beliefs, I’ve been in suburbs long enough that I can now kind of understand why a woman would follow kids around with a video camera and call the cops because they’re black and black people are not normally riding bikes on the streets of her community.
It’s still completely fucked up, but segregation and (even passive) racist assumptions will do this kind of thing to a person’s brain.
I’m glad the kids’ mother took the opportunity to try to educate the public about why doing crap like that to her kids not only robs them of their right to be equal and free, but also puts their lives needlessly at risk.
The answer rests in confronting the irrationality of fear.
Easier said than done. I am scared to death of rattle snakes. There were none in Vermont where I grew up, and when I moved from Florida I heard people talking about them. “Saw one in my tree in the front yard” people would say at work.
It absolutely effected my choices.
How many people are killed in the United States by rattle snakes?
Between 5 and 6.
Yet I don’t think twice when I get in my car – but my odds are much worse there.
How many white people are killed by black people in the United States? I ran the odds once: It’s about 400. Except about 80% of murders happen between people who know each other. I suspect the number is the same for murder of white people by black people.
Which means there were about 80 white people killed in the United States by black people in 2013 that didn’t know each other(last year of data I could find)
And yet think of the fear that permeates white suburbs.
About 400 people die from falling off a ladder every year. About 100 die from fallen electrical transmission lines.
The fear is real to be sure. No one knows murder has fallen so much. Crime in general is falling. And fewer young people are going to jail – down 45% in 15 years.
The data scream the fear is irrational.
Maybe if people knew it better they wouldn’t be so scared.
This is me with pit bulls. I don’t care how irrational I am with them, I want them nowhere near me.
I was watching a window washer today. That shit terrifies me.
Of course, a large number of people do die of falls every year.
I read a great book several years ago, The Science of Fear, by Daniel Gardner. This was during the time I was starting to come to terms with the severely irrational Obama Derangement Syndrome that seemed to be consuming everyone I knew. And it was tremendously eye-opening for me to realize how it is that most people are so driven by wholly incorrect premises when they are making day to day decisions in their lives, especially when it comes to high profile things like politics, religion and especially something like personal risk. This whole fear thing simply seemed to become hardened after 9/11, mostly because there were political and financial gains to be made by convincing people that they NEEDED to be afraid, 24-7, about anything and everything. But especially about foreigners and all those “others” who were their fellow travelers.
This whole mindset has carried over when it comes to always having personal weaponry somewhere within easy reach. I live in one of the highest concealed carry permit issuing counties, per capita, in the state. Yet, we are near the very bottom when it comes to violent crime. But yet, the anecdotal evidence I see seems to suggest that those who carry concealed weaponry almost all seem to have an irrational fear of government, minorities, Middle Eastern terrorists or being the victim of the sort of crime that is virtually unheard of in our local area. Yet they feel compelled to have a gun on their person at all times.
I have had many discussions with people I know who feel like this. And they really and truly feel that on any given day there is a good likelihood that one of these fears will come to pass and they will be required to use deadly force to defend themselves against one of these dangers. I told a gun carrying relative recently that of all the people they know who feel the same as they do about this fear factor, the likelihood that they will leave this mortal coil while hunkered down in their personal bunker, fighting off the government, terrorists, minorities or a violent criminal; is virtually nil. In fact, I can say with a high degree of confidence that the probability is essentially zero. The sad fact is that these people will almost all die of cancer, stroke, heart disease, car accident, influenza or, if they are lucky, something as common as just plain old age.
But the vast majority of these people will do almost nothing to protect themselves from the known and mundane causes of death that have been consistent for generations. They will eat, drink and smoke themselves into an early grave, all while packing that heat every day against a threat that the actual science says is infinitesimally small for almost every one of them. I have often mused to people as to why they don’t outfit their personal cars like those of a race car driver? Why don’t they encase themselves with so much safety that it would be almost impossible to suffer severe injury during a crash? Because if they were rational, that is what they would do. Take all that money they spend on weapons and ammo and put it into their vehicle’s safety. Because for most people, driving to work every day, or to the grocery store, or to their vacation destination, is the single most consistently dangerous situation they will ever encounter. Yet still, we don’t use seat belts, we text and drive and we consume meals while we are barreling 75 mph down the road. Those are they things we should be fearing, not these crazy, almost statistically non-existent threats that we so want to cling to.
When I first moved out of the city to the suburbs, I was very self-conscious and uncomfortable in all-white settings, whether it was a restaurant bar or a trip to the book store. I don’t even notice it anymore, and now I feel more nervous in the city among more diverse communities because I no longer know the neighborhoods or which blocks are sketchy.
This surprises me. If this is an actual phenomenon, I suppose it wouldn’t shock me, but what’s shocking to me is the ability for it to “flip” despite historical experience.
When I walk through Anacostia, I don’t feel like I’m in danger, but I am more aware of my environment in the sense that I’m not going to be there staring at my iPhone with headphones on at 3 am in the morning. But a lot of people treat Anacostia like it’s a war zone based on their racist feelings or what they heard from 10-20 years ago.
I definitely won’t be calling cops under almost any circumstance. We are at the point where every department in the US needs to be razed over.
Videotaped? Upscale white woman doesn’t have an iPhone?
Now in upscale western Philly suburbs, kids on bikes without parents would be suspicious. From what I could tell from visiting such a community, no kids were ever on the streets. When I asked, I was assured that families with children lived in all of the 4,000+sf houses, but outdoor living just wasn’t done.
Do people in upscale white communities notice when a black teen appears? Sure. And some will watch the teen until they’re satisfied that nothing is amiss. But recording the teen and calling the police is probably rare. Or I seriously underestimate the level of racist fear that exists in white communities.
I’ve lived in Japan for 25 years now, and it used to be that I was stared at all the time. Nowadays, not so much what with a constant stream of all kinds of foreign nationals streaming in from all over the world. There still are some issues, like when the Japanese are hesitant to sit down next to me on the train. Some are about to sit down, realize it’s whitey, and do an about face. I call out to them in Japanese, “Thank you for being upfront with your racism today.”
Upon returning to the U.S. though, I used to get roped into going to big band concerts in Southern Florida with WWII Veterans who are my uncles and aunts. In Sun City, FL (Sin City!) the audience for big band concerts, usually U.S. military bands playing some fairly corny music, (Pennsylvania 6-5000! What a crowd pleaser! Give me “Free Bird!”) was a sea of white haired people. To be the only guy in his late 20’s amongst the 70’s and 80’s crowd at the time, made me feel just as out of place as on any Japanese train. Homogenous population groups are indeed uncomfortable mass entities, BooMan. Still, my secret fantasy is to take any dyed in the wool racist back in America, and make them endure an empty train seat next to them in Japan to see what their breaking point towards a more enlightened view is.
Love yr reply: “Thank you etc. …”
Personally I have been fortunate to not have lived in “dangerous” communities all my life. In the States in the late 1950s and 1960s I grew up in St. Louis suburbs Creve Coeur (agricultural, rural community with 1,501 citizens in 1957) and St Ann. Never noticed any violence living there or commuting to high school in University City and later SLU in downtown. I do recall a student living in a dorm was murdered walking along Grand Blvd.
I did sense fear with citizens like my neighbour in St. Ann who showed me his handgun and advised me to buy one in order to protect self and property. I didn’t take kindly to that advice. Living in the rural area of Creve Coeur the family did have a light rifle, a 22 combined with a 12 gauge shotgun for doing some game hunting.
At SLU I had a group of really close friends and one weekend a couple took their convertible to make a tour of St. Louis County and while they took the rear seat I drove to areas behind Lambert Airfield to areas I had not been before. I recall it was rural with few residents and some more residential small villages we passed through. Yes, it was clearly Afro-American and at a 4-way intersection with stop signs, I sorta sensed people on porches were staring. Once safe and well out of Kinloch, my friend really was upset and angered. If I ever did such a stunt again he would end our friendship. The couple was really terrified to death.
After I finished college with a BSc and had worked in the Defense Industry (F111 test equipment), I decided to visit the old country to look for job opportunities. Not wanting to live in fear was one of the issues that made my decision to relocate. Looking back I must say I have no regrets. If I would have stayed, I would have preferred to live in a rural area, not in a major city with all hustle and bustle.
In the Netherlands I was raised in my early youth in an agricultural area along the North Sea coastline with dunes and the beach. Now I live in The Hague, the Dutch seat of government, embassies, international institutes like the Peace Palace (Carnegie endowment) with the International Court of Justice and of course the ICC with the Yugoslavia tribunal. I heve never lived a moment of fear for violence in The Hague.
Recently, to the north is a affluent city of Wassenaar with homes beyond €2m and I do come there now and then for shopping or just enjoying the pleasant surroundings cycling through parks, wildlife reserves and the dunes again. Friends I know quite well had a couple from Texas moving in for temporary residency near city center. Being a life-long NRA man, he was clearly uncomfortable not possessing his handgun. He must have had a near cardiac arrest when his spouse arrived late at night by public transportation! It took him some weeks to adjust, but later did admit he has never, ever felt more at ease with the sense of security he enjoyed now in The Netherlands.
Exploiting fear in politics is a well known element of a society based on an aggressive foreign policy and waging ill-conceived and illegal wars. A great boon for the homeland security industry that has seen exponential growth since 9/11. The Obama administration has avoided [US soldiers] boots on the ground, but it has caused the Middle East to be awash with arms, aircraft and missiles – a booming US military industry creating many jobs. And the cycle continues into a next generation.
○ UK to establish £15m permanent Mid East military base in Bahrain [to protect and secure their $50bn Al-Yamamah deal?]
○ The $18bn arms race helping to fuel Middle East conflict | The Guardian – 2015 |
○ Former FBI Director Louis Freeh Now Saudi Prince Bandar’s Lawyer
Didn’t Louis Freeh do the “investigation” of the terror attack on the Khobar Towers, conveniently putting blame [falsely] on Iran!
Burglaries in the neighborhood? Much better odds they were by a suburban white odiad addicted kid looking for quick money to take to black Kennsinton neighborhood to score some heroin. Seriously. Hard for a black kid to ride a bike all the way out to the rich western suburbs to rob a house.
I feel a need to add that it is actually more likely that the opiate-addicted young people who live within her own neighborhood are the ones breaking in…people have a hard time crawling out of Kensington.
Also, the crazy lady with the video camera was probably wondering who let those children of their block on Central Ave, behind the train station a few miles away. I can only imagine what would have ensued if someone had videotaped that same woman’s young daughters riding their bikes to the pool…
That was actually my point. The kids in her neighborhood likely have cars to score dope. At least in my experience white kids from Bucks County to the north manage to get to and from Kensington. And some don’t. Some die there. Some wait until they get home to OD. But few go into the city to both find money and score. The money is not in the city.
yes, that was going to be my comment as well. who knows, could be her own kids. obviously AA ppl, kids, aren’t walking around in her neighborhood. a little thought and she wouldn’t have resorted to videotaping. imo the mother was much too polite, should have pointed out that chances are White ppl are doing the breakins
I grew up in white suburbs in the sixties and seventies and attended all white schools. My high school had exactly one black student, and he was elected class president my senior year. I honestly believe that people more tolerant and open-minded back then.
My husband and I moved out of the suburbs and closer to the city when we married and vowed to move into a better neighborhood when we had children. But financially we were unwble to do that and our first son went to a city public school. He was surrounded by children of color and different religions from our own. It was a Montessori-based program and he thrived in the mix. And my two other sons did, too.
It’s been interesting to see the differences between my sons’ viewpoints vs the ones held by my parents. My mother is a fearful racist and it would have been easy for me to follow that fear. But both my husband and I are far more tolerant than she and my father.
There’s a difference of degrees of tolerance. I think you have to factor in common sense about safety, and you have to challenge the fear and prejudice. And more than that, you have to question your white privilege. I don’t know, as a mother of three sons, what it must feel like to raise children in a culture where they will automatically be feared. Or where they will be followed and watched suspiciously because of their skin color. Or they will be shot and killed over any minor offense, or over no offense at all.
I didn’t have to teach my sons deference to police officers or authority figures; it was enough to teach them to be respectful. I didn’t have to coach them about driving while black. I take a lot for granted as a white parent and I wish things were different. It feels like we were trying so hard in the seventies to move forward, but it’s whiplashed backwards again. And I don’t know how to make it better.
I live in the city. If I see a White person actually walking in my neighborhood, I admit it, I’ll keep my eyes on them for far longer than if I see a Black or Latino. Call the police on them? Um, no. The police have actual crimes that they should be solving.
A black friend once asked me if I had ever been alone in an all black neighborhood. Actually, I had. When I was in college on Chicago’s South side, I once took the bus to the Congress Street El station because my car pool driver wanted to do something else after school. No one did anything but I could feel eyes all over me and yeah, I was nervous. My friend told me that that was how he felt in an all white neighborhood. The point hit home.
Regarding being in the wrong neighborhood: Back in the late ’90s I was working at a client on the North Side near “Little India” on Devon Avenue. One Staturday I was working late and it was dark as I made my way home West on Devon. I was driving slowly because traffic wa fairly heavy and foot traffic was very heavy with lots of people darting across the street. I was followed about four blocks by a Chicago police car which put on the lights and pulled me over. I couldn’t understand what traffic infraction I had done. The cop (both of them white as I am) wanted to know what I was doing in that neighborhood, as I lived in the suburbs. (What happened to freedom of association.) I was driving my approximately five or six year old Buick Roadmaster and wearing my grey pinstripe suit and conservative tie as the client was rather stuffy. I explained but they didn’t believe me and wanted proof. Finally, I thought of my parking permit that was laying on the dash with the company logo and saying (my name) was an authorized contractor entitled to park on company premises. They allowed that I was “probably” telling the truth and let me go.
I recall reading a study long ago that found that overt racism varied with the percentage of the population that was a racial minority. So, contrary to what you might think, a town with virtually no black people would be less likely to have people call the cops on a black family who showed up than a town with 10% or so. As the percentage got even higher the overt racism tended to be reduced.
I mention this because in our extremely white community a black family walking or biking or just hanging out in the common areas won’t experience people calling the police or general hassle from police. I know because for a time I reviewed all police activity as part of my volunteer work.
This isn’t to say that no racism exists. My children have friends who are Asian, black, and Hispanic and in every case the kids say hardly a day goes by where someone doesn’t make a racist comment in their presence at school. Rarely something as overt as the N-word – mostly subtle stuff, but real. However, in our little community white people (for the most part) don’t actually fear the other races.
But but but…
according to Bernie, it’s all about economic inequality..
if only these boys parents had a job [/snark]
as someone wrote on another blog:
Damn. “Our Kind of People” catching hell
I was so sad to read this story. Black children are never seen a children. They were IN THEIR OWN NEIGHBORHOOD. Why shouldn’t they be riding their bikes.
Biking While Black is real.
Existing While Black is real
It doesn’t change the point of the story but from the link I understand they were actually in a different neighborhood to see their friends.
Not to my knowledge, but no question the very few black faces here in suburban greater L.A. area do stand out. Most of the 10-15% who are minorities in my neighborhood tend to be Asian, Hispanic, Indian/Pakistani, orthodox Jews. From the local paper’s crime blotter, consistently more antisemitic incidents here than crimes directed at other people because of their race.
Lived 2/3 of my life in suburbia here and in a midwest city. Most problems came from knuckledragging white working class types — idiotic actions, often involving loud noises, with no regard for the neighbors.
And dogs. Too many of them. People, please stop with all the pets.
Its not just discrimination, it’s how human brains are wired. We notice things out of the ordinary because it could mean danger. You can never fully overcome that because it’s biological.
That said, you can certainly not give in to that feeling and think logically about whether what you’re seeing is actually suspicious and what the odds are that you’re actually watching criminals. I grew up in a lilly white uppermidwest town and had never even seen a black person in real life until college. It wasn’t until I moved to Des Moines and lived in a neighborhood where I regularly encountered black people that it went away. But I never felt the need to call the police, though maybe as a Latino that has to do with my fear of police…
In any case, remember the overwhelming majority of people don’t care about you and that extends to not robbing or killing you.
how human brains are wired??
Got a link for this statement because I consider this nonsense! Fear is a primal instinct when we are under threat. You sitting in a car videotaping three boys on bicycles is not being under threat. It’s pure racist, rearing/upbringing in family and friends/school etc. The very first time I met a person with black skin color was in the 1950s in The Netherlands. A soccer player from Central Africa, perhaps Sudan played for our local club. He was absolutely black as the night. Didn’t scare we as a boy and I wouldn’t be scared of a person because of color.
Just a few years ago in front of my own home, an African man speaking English asked for change for the parking meter. As I was looking in my wallet, he dropped a coin and stooped over. I gave him some change and went my way going shopping nearby. When I wanted to pay the groceries, I had an empty wallet, all paper money had been been lifted in quite a professional manner.
I do hope my brains are wired now so I won’t be fooled again. :))
I recall reading a long time ago that the sense of tickling in one’s side is from primal times and an alert for impending danger. So when you experience that sense of tickling while tracking dark, brooding figures at night … you may be rightly concerned and should dial 911. 😉
In tribal times, fear led to burning of witches. One must admit it’s superstition and ingnorance. See the Skeleton People of Papua New Guinea. Fear has likely exponents in culture, beliefs and religion. In a modern state it’s just pure racist.
With large numbers of people interacting in the city and none of us know each other there is so much potential for misunderstanding and hurt ,because body language can always be misunderstood and some responses are reflexive – someone starts to walk into you and you move away – So I started making small talk in the elevator, smiling at people on the street, talking to the people at the bus stop, so what if some AA businessman thinks from my friendly smile I’m just some ignoramus who’s mistaken him for someone else – at least I’m not causing him the stress of an encounter with another white person acting like they think he’s going to steal their stuff, despite the fact that he has all these degrees and is an accomplished professional. anyway, it works, and it’s a small way of trying to be part of the solution. not sure this was clear with all the pronouns, didn’t have time to reply yesterday.
That’s the only thing that’s going to save us–simply making the effort to say hello to our neighbors. It gets easier with practice, and you can “train” them to say hello back. I wish there were a more efficient way to build community, but haven’t found one yet. Anyone have ideas?
(Sorry, late to the party.)
thanks for reply; yes. but also I’m talking about strangers, people on the street in NY and in elevators, in restaurants, waiting for public transit in NY. I started doing this after a few bad situations where strangers clearly thought hostility was directed towards them, one in a restaurant I was having a difficult dinner with a friend and it became clear the family at the next table thought our hostile vibes were about them. the difficulties between my friend and me were making for an unpleasant dinner out for a family celebrating some event (in NY restaurant tables are very close together) I finally spoke to the mother at the next table, how lovely her family was and I didn’t want any misunderstanding because I thought her teenage son was upset (I was correct, he was upset about it and had left the table). nothing ventured, nothing gained, the saying goes.
“The last thing I want to do is get someone killed just because I had a suspicion.”
But that is EXACTLY what these folks have on their mind, when you take it to its logical conclusion. They don’t like the “Other”, see their inability to tolerate the “Other” as a virtue, and would just as soon see them all lined up and shot. Think about the “nuke Iran to a glass parking lot” mentality that exists in full view of the world and God to see: They are advocates of genocide.
Closing in on 1,000 really, insanely stupid things spewing out of the 2016 GOP candidates.
(Yeah, everyone but Cruz knows that he’s not holding a machine gun.)
Imagine Cruz telling his PR team what a good ad would look like:
TC: What my Teabgger friends tell me is that Americans love guns. So, I want guns in it.
Flunky #1: Guns. Got it. But need something original to go with the guns.
TC: Bacon. Everybody loves bacon.
F#2: Guns and bacon. How about we have you shooting a pig.
TC: Nah. That pig castrator lady already used that.
F#1: That was a knife. But shooting animals is temporarily not a winner.
TC: Sunday. They like Sunday and church.
F#2: Guns, bacon, Sunday, and church? That’s going to be tough to put together.
TC: Family. Never leave out family. I what a great family man I am.
F#1: Got it. Chuck the church and we’ve got family Sunday breakfast with bacon cooked with a machine gun.
TC: Heh, heh. Trump will never be able to compete with that.
And as Steve over at No More Mister Nice Blog tells us, the Cruzade actually lifted the idea from a “Texas secessionist Christian gun nut” who runs a summer camp where good Christian families can send their kids to learn gun skills:
http://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2015/08/cruz-steals-infantile-stunt-from-texas.html
The guy is also — I know you’ll be amazed to hear this — a fan of Cliven Bundy.
Honestly, it’s like these folks inhabit another universe that unfortunately intersects with our own.
Well, Cruz did change “Gun Grill M-16” to “Machine-gun”, and added Sunday, breakfast, family, and music to his ad.
Nothing about libero-gun-whack jobs ever surprises me, but I do prefer to remain ignorant of their existence which sadly isn’t as easy to do as it once was.
These wackos have too much free time and too many bucks on their hands. “Hey, wouldn’t it been fund to spend $$ to cook a strip of bacon?” Wonder if the idea of cooking with an M-16 originated in Vietnam?