Racism, or something else? - Democratic Underground

Mythsaje

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Sun Jul-19-09 07:55 PM
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Racism, or something else?

Recently a little bit of a controversy has arisen on my street. For the past several months, as the weather has gotten more hospitable, we've had a group of young people (mostly young AA men) hanging out on the street in front of my house and the vacant house next door. In the evening it's a bit of a perpetual party, with people coming and going and visiting the neighbors and what not. My biggest complaint, believe it or not, has been about litter and parking spaces. As long as they don't use my yard as a place to throw their garbage and don't take up ALL the parking on the street, I don't mind all that much.

Well, recently one of the neighbors (none of the nearby ones, mind you) has gotten a bug up her butt about this all being gang and/or drug related. (Some drug dealing may actually be occurring, but my guess is it's probably pot and it's fairly low-key). Other than a few shouting matches every few months, it hasn't been that much of a problem. If they're being too noisy too late for the neighborhood, one of the matrons of the neighborhood usually sticks a head out her door and yells "Shut the FUCK up" and they all settle down.

Now we have this woman, apparently in charge of the local Safe Streets deal, whose gone all rabid about it. The funny thing is that my wife attended the meeting they had the other night and realized that this woman seemed to assume that all whites were on her side and all the African-Americans were against her. My wife stood up in support of the kids (they're kids to us) and, later, it was observed by one of them that she's "not afraid of us, are you?"

She's not, though it's clear that a couple of the neighbors ARE intimidated, particularly on nights when there's a whole lot of them. My wife told them if she didn't like something, she'd come out and tell them.

Well, yesterday this same woman came by delivering "action packets" or some such nonsense, telling us how to "set up a phone tree" and all of that, as well as suggesting that a few of the AA neighbors were somehow "involved" with this group of "hoodlums." Ironic, when you consider that I know that if these guys are out there, no one is going to be messing with my car, or those of my closest neighbors. Interesting, considering that they treat my wife and I with nothing but respect, and now go out of their way to make sure we have parking in front of our house. Hardly the actions of hoodlums.

We're talking about a group of young males with nowhere else to be, kids that often still live with family and who are chased out of their homes and, apparently, out of the city parks as well. Of course, most parks close at dusk. So where is it these kids are supposed to go? When I was their age my friends and I used to hang out a lot at Denny's, or a similar all-night restaurant, drinking coffee and socializing. What do you want to bet that they're not offered the same opportunity, even if they were interested.

Do I think racism is involved? Oh, yeah. Near as I can tell the worst things they've been guilty of is littering. That's all I've observed first-hand, though I've certainly smelled the fragrance of cannabis sativa or indica at times.

Better that than drinking and driving.

My wife also stated quite clearly that if they don't drive a reasonable speed on the street, she WOULD be calling the cops. But just for them being there? Not on board with that at all.