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How long did it take to convince people who were growing up in the seventies to be afraid of cities and of "bad" areas? How long did it take to convince everybody they needed to be in the suburbs?
Nothing ever happened to me in a supposedly bad area, yet I started thinking that way, also, and I have no idea why.
And after people were convinced to move to the suburbs, they were then convinced they needed gated communities which are like a little town in and of itself?
I don't know when I started falling for the propaganda, despite actual experiences that were completely at odds with the fear I eventually began to feel.
I've been to Harlem in the eighties. I've passed out, drunk, in a car in Harlem and nobody bothered me.
I've walked all over New York City from age twelve through my early twenties with nobody but at most two or three other kids with me. In all that time there was one incident on 42nd street where two girls, my age (14) tried to "mug" my friend and I. We didn't have any money, not even change, and on top of that, we were lost. The girls gave us directions and that was that.
I spent ages in Washington Square Park. I've hung out with plenty of vagrants who were perfectly nice people.
I've walked through Central Park in the dead of night, completely lost, with a few friends who were obviously the opposite of tough. We wandered for hours until we hit Tavern On the Green and could get our bearings from that. Nobody even ripped off our cooler.
The most danger I was ever in, there, was probably when I accidentally stepped into a road that was being used for a roller-blading race.
My friend got her ass pinched on fifth Avenue at one in the morning by some perv that ran past us. Another friend of mine lost a hundred bucks in a shell game, but come on...you never let those dudes hold your money.
In my opinion, Disnified, supposedly "safe" New York City sucks big ass. It's boring as shit, and Wall Street robs more than muggers ever did.
Somehow, people were nudged into thinking a house in the suburbs is where it's at. After everyone went for that, a whole knew fear-factor was launched and we had to live in gated communities to be safe.
I have lived in Jersey City, New Jersey. Twice. I've walked the streets and took the subways by myself at age thirteen and age twenty. (I don't know if there's any non-inner city looking parts of Jersey City, but I didn't ever see any.) I'm still alive.
I've walked around Newark, NJ as a teenager.
My idiot aunt, whilst in charge of a gaggle of children, allowed said children all between the ages of five and eight, to go outside, by themselves, and play in the lot next door (erroneously called a "field" by the lifelong urbanite standing on the porch.) The kids were on a...what looked like the pallats the legless beggars in India wheel themselves around on. Where they scored that, I'll never know. I probably should have checked back in the weeds.
The little girl, age six, had on a very fancy dress and no underwear and remained unmolested by the other children or a passing kidnapper.
The same brain damaged aunt was left in charge of my luggage in Port Authority one evening. I returned in ten minutes to find a young guy returning with my suitcase which he had taken by accident. He was black, by the way. I feel the need to point that out since people of colors not white have such an undeservedly bad reputation.
I've lived in a melting pot for most of my life and I've only ever been robbed by white people.
My first landlord was a slumlord, and he robbed me out of my deposit He laughed at me when I asked for it. He said, "We wouldn't take a deposit on that place!" (Mr. Gavin, Junior, aka asshole). I was a teenager on my own. I needed the seven hundred bucks. I couldn't find the receipt until six years later when I had to stifle the urge to send it to him. I can thank him for this, though: I never lost a deposit again.
The apartment was freshly painted, for the record. I moved because the ceiling caved in. We also had no heat, but I didn't know that was illegal. We just used the oven. Once we forgot there was a pizza in a box in there. Fortunately, since you could be in the kitchen and every other room simultaneously, including the bathroom, there was no out of control fire from that.
Anyway, not only did Mr. Gavin Jr. not return my deposit, he allowed other people to move in before I was moved out! I came home one day. I already had a new apartment so it was a matter of getting my furniture, but I wasn't officially out for two more weeks. I guess Mr. Gavin Jr. figured since I wasn't using the apartment he'd just let other people move in and get both of our rents. I didn't know that was illegal, either. I knew it was outrageous, though.
They were in, must stuff was unharmed. I let it go.
So my point was, I've only ever been robbed or abused by white men, or white boys.
My cousin had a black slumlord in Newark. He didn't rob her, but I thought after she started sleeping with him and cooking his dinner every night he could have given her a break on the rent.
She lived in a basement apartment that flooded regularly. I slept there one time on the couch with my sneakers melting onto the portable heater. There were two heaters which they moved around as needed and because they had no electricity the landlord had run one of those big orange wires from an upstairs apartment down into their basemant apartment. They had that presumably hooked to a power strip, because this is where all the heaters and everything else had to be plugged into. I say presumably because I couldn't see what was going on under all the wet towels.
The shower could have been worse. Only the hot water worked.
The oven worked, and because it was the only warm spot in the apartment, that's where all the roaches lived.
The most dangerous thing that happened in that place was when the idiot cops came looking for who knows what and they started shooting willy-nilly. As far as I know, nobody was even ever arrested, but I would have to double check. My cousin has kids. How do you go into a building with kids and start shooting your guns? Drive by's? Worry about the cops shooting your kids through a wall.
So what I wonder is this: Were we artificially inseminated with fear in order to be influenced into buying all these bullshit walled away houses, and to spend spend spend more and more money to keep us "safe"? And now to give up more and more rights in order to be "safe."
What did Michael Moore call it when a strong group could be splintered..plurality? Were we pluralized to weaken us?
We aren't safe! The people we should have been all separating ourselves from are the people making and enforcing the rules!
People should throw out their TV's and their radios. I am starting to feel like we've been in Nazi germany and hadn't even noticed. I wonder if this is how the Germans felt when they realized "hey, this shit is way out of hand."
Subdivisions lyrics
Sprawling on the fringes of the city In geometric order An insulated border In between the bright lights And the far unlit unknown Growing up it all seems so one-sided Opinions all provided The future pre-decided Detached and subdivided In the mass production zone Nowhere is the dreamer or the misfit so alone [Chorus:] (Subdivisions) In the high school halls In the shopping malls Conform or be cast out (Subdivisions) In the basement bars In the backs of cars Be cool or be cast out Any escape might help to smooth the unattractive truth [ From: http://www.elyrics.net/read/r/rush-lyrics/subdivisions-lyrics.html ] But the suburbs have no charms to soothe the restless dreams of youth Drawn like moths we drift into the city The timeless old attraction Cruising for the action Lit up like a firefly Just to feel the living night Some will sell their dreams for small desires Or lose the race to rats Get caught in ticking traps And start to dream of somewhere To relax their restless flight Somewhere out of a memory of lighted streets on quiet nights... [Chorus] |
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