I don’t see enough courage. I live in a rough neighborhood. There is gang activity. People get shot and killed. I’m an ethnic minority here. Everytime I leave my house I risk being mugged, or worse.
When I go to a local bar I may find myself sitting next to a gay couple, or people speaking Russian, Korean, or Arabic. Or a gangbanger deep in his cups, strapped and looking over his shoulder for an anticipated ambush.
It takes courage just to wake up in the morning and face the responsibilities of the day, but I don’t see much courage (or leadership) coming out of suburban America. Living in the city challenges your assumptions.
The straight guys don’t bother to speculate about the sexual preferences of the men in the corner, let alone lay in wait for them outside in the parking lot. Black people and white people may maintain a level of distrust, but they know how to talk to each other.
No one is offended, much less threatened, by hearing foreign languages. No one cares if you go to church, or if you don’t.
All of this helps explain why the people of New York City and Philadelphia, and San Francisco, and Chicago, and Washington, DC are against the war. We are not afraid. Demographic changes and secularism (or ecumenicalism) do not threaten us. We value diversity. We fled the whitebread life by choice.
It’s not the simplicity of the heartland that I look down on, nor do I undervalue the virtues and charms of rural and suburban America. What I resent is the lack of courage.
Where are the most likely targets of a terrorist attack? I live a mile from Independence Hall, the birthplace of the Republic. My brother lives only a few miles from the White House. We know we are at risk, but we are not afraid. Why are my red brothers and sisters out in Nebraska and Idaho more terrorized than we are? Why do they support spending copious amounts of money to kill Arabs over in Arabia? Why do they think the alternative is to kill Arabs (my neighbors) over here?
Here is my advice to all the millions of Americans that fear terrorism but do not live anywhere near a terrorist’s target: Do not worry about me. I am not afraid. Tell this administration that he should stop taxing your children to protect people that do not want this form of protection. We do not agree that this is making us safer. We think he is taxing your children to make rich people more rich and that he is neglecting our cities and our poor. And that makes our lives worse, that makes our streets and neighborhoods less safe. These policies make us many new enemies that will seek to kill us in retaliation. Not you.
We do not live behind gated communities and we do not have private security forces. We walk by alleys after dark and we dodge mentally unstable people to get to our subways and to make our bus connections. When you neglect the needy, we are the people that suffer. When the dispossessed and alienated riot, they riot in Newark, Detroit, and Watts. They do not riot in Topeka, Boise, or Crawford, Texas.
When you tell us that you know better and that it is necessary for our nation’s safety and prestige that we win ‘victory’ in Iraq, and that we need to allow the President to eavesdrop on our conversations and to deny us the right to hear the charges against us in order to keep us safe…you are disrespecting us. We live here. We live among the sleeper cells. And we are not afraid. So, why are you?
Update [2005-12-27 10:13:30 by BooMan]: See another urban dweller, Eugene Robinson make almost the exact same point in today’s Washington Post.
Where, precisely, is this “suburbia” of which you speak?
And BTW… it’s the rich people in wonderful cosmopolitan cities like NYC and DC who have been some of this bogus War on Terror’s biggest supporters. So the “cities great, rest of country bad” analogy falls apart a bit there, I think. Why aren’t you city folks doing more to stand up directly and effectively to the powerful rich in your wonderful cities? You’re their next-door neighbors.
The ratio of support in Philly for the war in Iraq appears to be of the weight where ratios break down. I haven’t spoken to, or even read, a Philadelphian that supports the war in over a year. And that includes the patrons of the Arts, the councilpeople and their crowd… Not too many rich people here that support the WOT. In DC the only rich people have direct connections to the Establishment. And in New York, aside from the crowd that revolves around Ed Koch, or the Media Establishment, I see almost no support at all.
I don’t confuse people’s willingness to endure inconvenience, or even fear, with a willingness to change society. Take the recent NYC transit strike. For three days, New Yorkers muddled through pretty well, but the fact is that most of them would still say that the transit workers are uppity, are asking for too much, and don’t even wish to consider whether the Taylor Law is just or not.
I also do not see any exceptionally progressive big-city newspapers out there, particularly not the offensively bootlicking rag known as the New York Times. Shouldn’t a progressive city have a progressive newspaper? And no, letters to the editor don’t cut it. And what about the way demonstrations are repressed in New York by the police? So, why is there such a disconnect between the power structure of the cities and their own citizens? Shouldn’t you guys be having the courage to at least control your own cities before sitting there insulting the rest of the people of this country?
Also recalling my history, it’s the people in rural communities and small towns who were at the forefront of most of the fires of reform in this nation. While Manhattanites were still bashing blacks’ heads in, people in small-town America were starting interracial communities BEFORE the Civil War. The labor movement had its toughest struggles in the mines of Appalachia. During the civil rights movement, the action was happening in the out of the way places. So where do you get off dividing America into black and white, “we in cities brave, you outside of cities cowardly”?
So if there’s so much progressive thought and sentiment and just plain courage in the cities, where is the meaningful ACTION (you know, the kind that requires courage, not just contributions to the correct political party)? I don’t see it. Barroom commiserating doesn’t count. Voting patterns don’t count.
The truth is that city folks live just as intimately entangled with the moneyed status quo as anyone else in this country does – if not more.
I said ‘red’ brothers and sisters. I am fully aware that even the reddest patches of Utah and Oklahoma there are still more than 3 in 10 people that voted for Kerry.
But it is also true that the strongest support for the WOT does not come from Upper East Side Republicans but from the farms and ranches and exurban and suburban enclaves of the country, and the irony is that they will be the last to die in a mushroom cloud or chem/bio attack.
since I come from such stock. We tend to do things out of the habits of nature, the sun and seasons rule our days and lives. It used to be that Republicans were the party who represented the things that we needed and though that has dramatically changed, farmers and ranchers don’t watch TV much and politically are very ill informed. One thing is for sure though when it comes to the farmers and ranchers of the plains, I don’t know any Christian Fundies out there. We all had to learn a long time ago that “God being mad at us” and droughts or blizzards had precious little in common before global warming came along. God gave us the ability to adapt and overcome but he never promised us a rose garden for sucking his butt on the Colorado plains. We don’t know any Arabs though…..we are lucky if we have ever even met more than one in our lifetimes that we had a conversation with. If the president goes out there and spouts off numerous times that they hate us for our freedom we eventually hear it and mull it over during the whole week of swathing hay, and nobody seems to come forward to call bullshit so they must hate us for our freedom. We work from sun up to sun down and are a victim of the new reporting of the news which is the sound byte!
Very true Tracy.
There is no substitute for experience. When I was 21 I would see some gay men in a bar and worry that I had walked into a gay bar. Now, I willingly go to gay bars and sing showtunes. OK. I don’t sing them, but I enjoy watching others sing them.
When I first moved to the city I felt unsafe in black neighborhoods. Then I went to work in them. Now, I can differentiate between a safe and unsafe neighborhood. Now I know that I should have been afraid of many white neighborhoods.
When I went to school in western Michigan I discovered that there was a lot of anti-Semitism but that most people though all Jews looked like Hasidics. And they thought a frozen piece of bread with the word Lender’s on it was a bagel.
People need to get to know people from different backgrounds and they will stop fearing them. People need a little personal risk in order to be able to tolerate any risk at all.
of the old white man in Alabama, back in the Freedom Rider days. He was what today you would call a “product of his culture,” parroting things about coloreds knowing their place and segregation forever and outside agitators. The trouble was, his best friend from childhood was a black man named Henry. So the old white man would frequently conclude one of his racist screeds with “and that’s all I’ve got to say about that, now me and Henry going fishin’.”
He never made the connection, until one of his sons told him that Henry had been turned away from the courthouse when he tried to register to vote. The old man was indignant. First, he was angry at Henry because he had not been voting all these years, and the old man believed it was very important to vote.
Then, he had a lightbulb over the head moment and was furious at the people down at the courthouse, whom he had known all his life, for “acting ugly” to his best friend Henry. Next thing you know, he was down at the courthouse protesting with the uppity coloreds and the outside agitators, and of course, Henry. 😀
Boo – after reading this, something did not sit right with me. I’ve lived in NYC, Brooklyn, Los Angeles. I was mugged in NYC. I do know life in the city.
I now live in the “Heartland” – South Dakota to be exact. It is in SoDak that I have seen some of the biggest changes in attitude toward the war. Both my FIL and BIL – who used to be huge Bush and war supporters – no longer support the war or the administration. This change took place a few years ago. Most of the people I know in this state do not support the war. Of course there are people in SoDak who support the war, but you will find those people in every state in this country.
Some of the strongest war supporters I know live in NYC and suburban NJ. As was mentioned above, they are rich – and white.
I understand the point you are trying to make, but I think it is too great of a generalization. Attitudes are changing in this country – and in the Heartland. Maybe you can’t see it because you don’t live amongst us?
I’m glad to hear that minds are changing, the polls definitely show some movement. I am not attacking the good people of South Dakota but asking them, if they still do, to stop worrying about my safety. Or to at least listen to the people in jeopardy when we tell you, collectively, what we think will best keep us safe.
YES, BOO MAN!!!
Those who say that “the heartland” and suburbia understand in the same way that you have described simply have not lived in an urban working class neighborhood long enough or recently enough.
Things have changed here. (I’m in da Bronx, myself…)
And as always in America, at least since the post-Civil War era…the REAL stuff moves out of the cities and into the general culture.
You don’t need a commuter train to know which way the wind’s a’blowin’.
Had a long conversation in “the heartland” just yesterday with a whole working class family. Truck drivers, auto mechanics. The truck driver father has been driving into NYC for 30 years. Almost never stops until he drops off his load and/or picks up a new one in the Bronx or Brooklyn or wherever and then heads back out again (no place to park his truck), and even HE has been changed by the urban culture as it is growing here. He says that as he drives through neighborhoods now that were totally segregated at one time…neighborhoods where if he had been given a reason to step out of his truck 30 years ago he would have come out armed and ready for anything, any time of the day or night…the scene on the street is totally integrated and relatively peaceful. (Although generally foreign to his personal experience.)
The REAL resistance…not the “talk a good game but pay your taxes” kind…is in the true heartland of this country.,
The cities, where the melting pot continues to boil and bubble and brew.
Things they are a’changin’…
AG
disagree strongly
i have lived in many places….grew up in working class south philly….lived in the poorest most violent neighborhood in the poorest most violent city in america (north camden nj), lived in rural ky and tenn in the middle of the bible belt 18 miles from the nearest town….i have lived on university campuses and in white bread suburbia….i have seen hate everywhere….deep hate…deep prejudice….i never saw so much hate or felt so threatened as i did in a community meeting in the germantown section of philly surrounded by good god fearing african american church people who stood up and screamed that my kind (they thought i was gay) were not welcome in their neighborhood and they were going to do everything to get me out )less than 4 years ago….im sorry but no one has a monolpoly on hate and the things that go with hate.
no one has a monoploy on hate, and there is tremendous racism in this city. And there is homophobia. But even that is changing very rapidly. I can see it in my own neighborhood where the bars are no longer really gay and straight and black and white, but a mixture of all of the above.
Even 5 years ago I didn’t see much of that.
changing rapidly?
you really need to get out of your neighborhood
go live at 7th and snyder where one ethnic asian group is slaughtering another ethnic asian group
your neighborhod is much more educated and with a higher income level than most of the rest of the city….in fact its more economically similiar to many white suburban neighborhoods than certainly the neighborhoods i came from in philly.
I just moved from, essentially, 16th and Snyder. And a nice girl from my block was killed last summer in that Asian on Asian gunfight. That dispute was between the gang centered on 15th and Morris and the one centered on 3rd and Reed.
My current neighborhood is ruled by a gangster named Baby whose crew station the corners with binoculars because they are in the midst of a gangwar.
I don’t think my experiences are with well educated yuppies. I can’t afford to live in those neighborhoods.
Boo, please don’t generalize people like that, it’s so insulting. I am a spoiled white lady living in the suburbs. Don’t assume you know what I eat, think or fear. This is the kind of division the bushists want to create in America; and it appears to be working quite well when I see you buy into it.
I know people are sensitive to this criticism but I am going to keep making it. I specified ‘red’ people and supporters of the WOT. I am not saying that people from Boise are this way or that. I am saying people from Boise have no reason to support this foreign policy and this trampling of our civil rights if their concern is for the people that live in our urban centers. They don’t understand. Maybe you don’t understand, maybe you do. But we are not as afraid of terrorism as the people that support the war. That makes little sense.
We know that we are the targets and we know that there is a risk. But all our risks are higher and we are used to living with risks. We would prefer that Bush not make the threat of terrorism worse than it already is while abandoning the safety net that helps keep our neighborhhoods safe from crime.
We know that we are the targets and we know that there is a risk. But all our risks are higher and we are used to living with risks.
First of all, Booman, if some terrorist tries to transport a suitcase nuclear bomb down to Philadelphia from Canada on Interstate 81 and it goes off by accident in Tully, New York, the folks in Tully will be just as crispy as folks would be in a big city. (Quite frankly, it’s far more likely for an accidental incident of this type to occur than a well-planned deliberate one.) I know this possibility is inconvenient to the “heroic urban dwellers” mythos you seem to want to perpetuate here, but everyone in the country bears some risk, probably more than we know.
Secondly, there’s a reason your risks are higher, and it’s not just because of a concentration of people; it’s because terrorists like to target symbols of the rich and powerful. Rather than focusing so much on Bush perhaps it would be more useful to focus on the rich and powerful who are closest to you. Again, I wonder why urban progressives cannot seem to be masters of their own domains before they start lashing out at whatever quaint, outdated visions they have of “the heartland” (some of which have higher concentrations of Spanish speakers and African refugees than your neighborhood probably does).
But we are not as afraid of terrorism as the people that support the war.
Yes, but you’re afraid of other things. I dare you to go to Ground Zero and put up a sign that asks hard questions about how urban-based corporations – specific companies and investment houses – contribute to repression in the Middle East. What decisions did your neighbors in their trillion-dollar apartments make that contributed to the rise of Al Qaeda. Urban progressives these days tend to not have the courage to be “tasteless.” That would be beyond the pale. Better to insult faraway people in imaginary small towns and imaginary gated communities instead.
that’s like saying the people of Shanksville were more at risk that the people of TriBeCa on 9/11. It’s absurd.
I’m not insulting anyone except those that think Bush’s tactics are making our urban centers more safe, and I am trying to make clear than people that live in urban centers, whether rich or poor, do not feel (as a collective) that we should abandon our constitional rights or continue to pursue our foreign policies just so that people that are at very low risk can feel that we are safer.
there are too many flaws in your argument
too many generalizations
people in urban centers dont all feel the same about our constitutional rights
i was at christmas dinner with lots of city people and all i heard all night was they dont give a fuck about who is getting wiretapped….all they cared about was whether the mayor was gonna do a good job of getting the snow off their street in the next snow storm.
Chaka Fattah got 88% of the vote. Bob Brady got nearly as much. Would it be an unfair generalization to say that this city is Democratic?
At what point is it safe to make a generalization?
People may care more about snow removal than their constitutional rights. But that doesn’t mean they support the President.
There are racists and homophobes all throughout Philly. But there are many less of them per capita, and they too tend to live in isolated neighborhoods.
The point is that the stongest opposition to Bush comes from the very areas that are at greatest risk of a terrorist threat. Those of us that use the subways are venture near famous landmarks.
I can see all sides of this argument … but I need to do some thinking before I comment much, because I’m not sure that this is where the emphasis needs to be.
It’s very complex.
I’ve lived in two major cities — Los Angeles and Seattle (the longest) — and loved both of them.
I stayed in Philadelphia for a week in the mid-90s when I was training for a job … (I paid for Darcy to come with me so she could see an East coast city, and we went to the art museum, etc.).
But, the people we had to “hang” with mostly had no interest in the arts or culture, and they just wanted to go to the malls.
We did a lot of exploring on our own. We took some wrong turns, and ended up in ghetto areas. Not fun, especially when one is completely lost. We were a bit scared, but we made it though by using common sense. We didn’t know what to expect, so our fear was natural, imho.
Most of all, we were stunned — utterly stunned — by the filth. By the crumbling old ugly buildings. By the hostility of the drivers on the freeway.
We couldn’t believe the dirty, crumby grocery stores with armed guards.
There was so little green. So little natural beauty. We found some when we accidentally found ourselves driving through the Swarthmore campus.
The most arid desert has more diversity of natural life in it than a dense, dirty, old city.
I’ve NEVER seen an armed guard in a grocery store in the Pacific Northwest.
We kissed the ground when we flew in to SeaTac.
…
And, after moving to the peninsula, we feel closer yet to the natural world … there’s nothing quite like looking out our windows and seeing, to our south, the Olympic mountains, and to our right, the ocean waters of the Strait.
Darcy goes hiking IN the mountains every weekend! In minutes! Or they take long hikes out onto sandy bits that extend out into the Strait, or along the rivers that empty into the Strait.
In minutes, we can be at Lake Crescent — one of the most stunning, pristine lakes in the world. Where Teddy Roosevelt stayed.
We MOURN the people from the CITIES who are moving here and building their gargantuan, ugly McMansions — they have no feeling for the land, no sense of melding with the earth and the mountains and the ocean.
We ASSUMED this area was full of mostly rednecks when we first moved here … au contrare. We eventually found the Green Party social group, and then – when we had the Howard Dean meetups — we found the most fantastic, educated, urbane, aware group of people anyone could ever hope to meet.
There are the churchy types, with whom we don’t associate much…. but, when I worked with them, their beliefs and FEARS astonished me. (Well, mostly they made me laugh, but I also shook my head a lot. They are living proof that Christian churches too often have nothing to do with Christ’s teachings.)
When the anthrax mail scare hit, one senior person said that we would need a system to monitor our mail. (I mentioned that perhaps we weren’t on the top of the terrorists’ hit lists!)
After 9/11, one ultra-conservative Opus Dei-type woman was most worried about the terrorists blowing up the Hood Canal bridge when she had her weekly Sunday afternooon trip to Nordstrom in Seattle where she had her personal shopper. (I told her the odds were extremely low, and encouraged her to go.)
These people were very narrow in their worldview and level of sophistication. They had very rigid views.
But it seemed to be mostly their religion that made them that way.
And, most of all, I found disturbingly that their religion made them far less compassionate.
I recall hearing on the NPR radio (I always had on at my desk — as a cuontermeasure as well as a friend) that Andrea Yates had been convicted of murder.
My heart sank because I feel that she’s deeply mentally ill, and had also been warped hopelessly by religion … I mentioned it to the same senior person who had thought we needed to worry about anthrax in our mail. He LEAPED for joy. He WHOOPED. I was floored. How could anyone be elated — acting as hyper as if their favorite team had won the big game — because a mentally ill woman had been convicted of murdering five innocent children.
Random thoughts …
A lot to think about.
Hmmm…
Here in my suburban town (west of Philly), I see a big mix of attitudes. There are the folks like me, who’ve never fallen for the BushCo crap. There are the longtime Republican voters, who vote that way because they think Bush will protect their money and small business. These folks have been slowly shifting in their support, but can’t quite grasp the idea that they’ve supported someone so heinous; these folks also the ones who think Saddam attacked us on 9/11 (I kid you not) and that we can’t leave Iraq until we “fix” it. There are the children of the wealthy, driving their Jeeps with W stickers to high school in the morning, pro-war because they are secure in the knowledge that soemone else will have to fight it while they go off to college. There are the parents I’ve spent many any evening hanging out at the lacrosse field with, who are interested in why I would go to hear Cindy Sheehan speak in Philly or to the march in Washington, who seem to have a disconnected interest in what is going on re: the “war on terror”, as if it isn’t really happening in their country. Perhaps the worst though, are my mother’s friends, who choose not to see that our freedoms are being stolen from us, saying that the illegal surveillance is being done by “people who know more and better than we do.” She can hardly speak to them anymore.
There is definitely a shift, but I think the biggest thing I see is apathy. People know what’s going on is wrong, but they are caught between disbelief, not knowing what to do to make a change, and being too hung up in the daily minutiae to care about the big picture.
of the apathetic, when they rouse themselves to form an opinion, is that they do not like to be controversial or contrarian. They will follow trends, they will support those that already have support.
So, the more doubt they see expressed the safer they feel signing on for that doubt. And if they hear the targets of terrorism telling them that Bush is making matters worse, and they hear it in a unified and clear way, they will listen.
Well, they’re hearing about it on Sunday morning runs with friends and on the sidelines at the lacrosse field, among other places… 🙂
exactly
and i dont see any difference in city people
lots of apathy all the way around
the answer is a DRAFT
that would wake everyone up real fast.
I see this, or a form of it as a future solution. Life here will have to get worse before it’s viable but by then it won’t be as advantageous.
A program of mandatory civil service involving training in fields of aptitude and programs ranging from job placement through mentoring would address several problems.
If it’s not considered until we are a complete police state it will be a very destructive program if implemented at that point.
Taking the, er, Long view this is fascinating. I was raised in a city, lived in the burbs (small town in big valley) for the past thirty years, and learned about the “red states” through friends and family. Scratch a little deeper and the bar (or diner) conversations aren’t any different anywhere.
At ground level your environment – block, neighborhood – shapes your outlook. In rural areas that neighborhood covers square miles, in urban areas square yards. But that doesn’t equate to differences in perception about the future of our Country, nor is there a clear, bright line separating those two grossly generalized populations.
We have much more common ground than you’re seeing right now.
True as far as it goes, but…
Let’s say you are from a liberal family, upper middle class, went to a top-flight liberals arts school, settled in a nice safe town, with low crime and good schools. That would describe most of the people I grew up with. And most of them support aid to the poor, progressive taxation, strong labor rights and workplace protections, civil rights, etc.
The difference is: they are concerned about poverty and lack of opportunity because they are compassionate people. But when poverty goes up they are not directly effected. Their crime rate stays the same, their schools are still good.
But I can feel every uptick in unemployment. I see it on my street corners. I feel it in the level of personal safety I have just walking around.
The same is true for terrorism. I can feel the chill when Arab tensions (or anti-Arab tensions) are hot.
What I am trying to convey is that there is a world of abstraction and there is a world of consequence. Caring is one thing, and having your life change is another.
And there are people out there that think we need to support the NSA taps to keep me safe. I don’t think so. I don’t think very many people that live in the target areas think so. And our opinion should carry a lot of weight.
But when poverty goes up they are not directly affected. Their crime rate stays the same, their schools are still good.
I think that goes to the heart of the apathy/disconnected attitudes I encounter here.
i think you are completely wrong about the wiretaps
its not that they think we need the wiretaps
it just doesnt affect most people in a negative way…they dont see a personal uncomfortable consequence…its a losing issue…we are not going to get anywhere with this issue except maybe legally and i doubt even that will fly at this point….
meanwhile while we were having fits over illegal wiretaps, congress passed a budget that made rich people richer and poor people poorer…and the democrats havent managed to make an issue of it.
bigger dumbasses than george bush
Gleaning from yours above and here, and the replies, I’d point to the speed of change, rather than the substance in rural v. urban. And the shift I think is more subtle, and deeper, that you’ve described. A farmer in North Dakota stringing wire at 10 below, and an underemployed worker in an inner city both live in that world of consequence.
Neither lives in the abstract, both have felt the change. Sometimes those changes are just more visible – and louder – in an urban environment.
as much as lack of knowledge — in other words, isolation. We’re all so busy trying to survive in the Republican’s vision of America that we don’t really think about the folks across the country…or even the folks across the street.
For example, there was one blog that decided not to cover the NYC transit strike because it was a “local issue”. But the issues that the TWU local in NYC is fighting for are more than just local — they’re issues that everyone who brings home a paycheck needs to worry about. We haven’t heard anything about those issues — just the inconvenience to Joe and Jane Commuter at the height of the holiday rush, and so it’s easy for Sam and Susie Suburbia to say, “Fire the bastards and hire all the displaced New Orleans folks to take the jobs.” (Some idiot actually sent that to CNN — obviously they don’t know how much training is involved to be a transit operator, especially in a big city like NYC.)
Fear and ignorance are the neo-cons greatest tool — it’s not just fear of terrorism, but fear of poverty, of losing what little you’ve worked hard to keep. If you’re too busy trying to make enough money to keep your family fed and clothed, or driving alone for two plus hours from the only home you can afford, you’re not going to have the time or inclination to find out what’s really going on in Iraq or Washington or NYC. And that’s what they count on — people not having the time or the desire to find out the truth, but rather being more interested in what’s going on with Desperate Housewives or one of the many iterations of Law & Order.
‘Nuff said for now…
that it seems to be the people least at risk from “terrorism” that are the most worried about it, enough to vote for “peace and security” over civil liberty protections — we’re just a hop, skip and a jump from Lockheed Martin’s facilities, and folks around here seem to be more concerned about Google maintaining it’s growth or whether the latest Java changes are going to make their jobs obsolete than they are about a “terrorist threat”…
It isn’t the special effects, those usually leave us all wowing more than cringing. The cinema artists that figure out that it is the unknown horror that lives in our own minds that is the most terrifying thing to us make the very best horror movies. I didn’t see one single bad guy watching the Blair Witch Project but it scared the snot out of me when it came to camping out for about a year. Alfred Hitchcock and George Bushcock (oops, I guess that would be porn).
Well, it’s pointless to ask people who don’t care about you to stop caring about you. I think what you’re really asking is, “please DO care about us.” That’s one thing. The other thing is that the reverse of “caring” is true, as well. Drive through the empty farms and dying towns of my state, for instance, and you’ll see how much city people care about whether or not the Heartland gets wiped out, and these particular forms of annihilation have been going on for a much longer time. But just so the aisles in the grocery stores are filled, who cares? There are all sorts of terror and all kinds of way of not giving a shit.
That was me. I forgot to change my ID back.
Very good points.
Thank you. 🙂
what you are talking about is not the fear of “terrorism” in the sense of someone (usually depicted as an Arab with a “dirty bomb” in a suitcase) which while anything is possible, is not likely, but the very real, very inevitable and impending domestic conflict as the gap between rich and poor widens, and the hordes of poor continue to grow.
While rural US has its share of poor, the largest concentrations have historically been in cities and still are, in the ghettos and barrios and various dingy warrens clung to by those still able to cling to any sort of housing, and of course the increasing numbers who cannot.
Operation Crescent Cleansing provided a very crystalline illustration of just how much the affluent cares about the underclass, for some the lesson was chillingly real, for others subconscious.
This winter will see a sizeable exodus from housing from America’s cities, and the Medicare donut death wave will impact an even larger number of people who will have considered themselves modestly affluent until they have to come up with an extra couple of thousand a month to pay for grandma’s pills. For some, that will be their disposable income. For others, it will be the mortgage.
The meekness of the US underclass is world famous, but there is a lot riding on its continuance, and as the chips pile up, whether they realize it or not, it is dawning on some affluent that they have bet more than they can afford.
No, US is sadly not on the brink of some major social justice awakening, but something far grislier, and BooMan is correct that it is he, who has sufficient income to purchase housing, and food, and medical treatment, who will bear the brunt as those with more money than he gird up their loins to cleanse the cities of those who do not.
Even here in the Pond, we live among the sleeper cells.
The urban/suburban rift here in MN is not so much about terror (I really don’t think anyone believes that terrorists will target St. Paul), but the rift is very real nevertheless.
Many years ago the Democrats joined with farmers and laborers to form the DFL, bringing together urban and rural interests. And MN was known as “The state that works.” Lately the tremendous growth of the suburbs has produced a strong “no taxes” Republican party that is in the process of ruining everthing that was built over many years.
What is interesting lately is that the devastation that is affecting rural MN is setting the stage for urban and rural people to come together again. Its sad the battle lines are so firmly drawn, but Bush’s disasters might just bring us all together again.
As my late husband said “nobody gets off this planet alive!” When I saw how few people were actually killed in the aftermath of 9/11 I was heartened. It could have been a huge death toll – up to 50,000 at the WTC alone, not counting how many could have been killed at the pentagon. So few people chose to go out that way, but the people that did left behind some gutsy folks.
Look at how many were wiped off the face of the earth by the tsunami and the Pakistani earthquake. THOSE folks have much more the mourn than we do even with the Katrina tragedy. But what we do have to mourn is the solid lack of compassion from those so-called “compassionate conservatives”. And our leadership that only knows how to throw blocks into rebuilding and reconstruction. FEMA has been a marvel of ineptitude and crepitude. Maybe it is true that all civilizations have a warranty period and ours has expired. And the Bush adminstration is what we get before we trade the whole shebang in. But what, other than feudalism, will we trade for what was a grand ride? A ride that promised so much and gave us so much room to experiment.
As much as I appreciate the qualifications made on this thread, I think you’re on target here.
People who who live in highly homogeneous environments – the burbs – are much more likely to buy into the culture of fear. All they know of different poeple is what they see on the five o’oclock news (any network, any market). Their primary information stream portrays the lives of poor, the urban, the foreign and the otherwise different as an unending chain of natural disasters, trainwrecks and shootings (the greater the body count, the better), so I’m not surprised that many of them are scared shitless of the big world. Urban dwellers realize what a crock it is every time they go to buy groceries.
This is not merely a domestic issue, as it is often grossly apparent in the way Americans – and America – act in the world. In the mid-80’s, Sylvester Stallone – at the peak of his Rambo fame – declined to travel to Cannes for the film festival on account of one of Reagan’s bogus terrorist scares (800 miles from Libya? No way – who knows how many French starlets are working for Gaddafi!). More recently, the Secret Service required that all manhole covers be welded shut when W went to Mainz, Germany last spring – not even Putin has ever demanded that.
Those who look at my info might think I’m an unlikely person to sound off on the subject of fear, courage and suburbia. The short explanation is: I grew up in the burbs, and ran like hell first chance I got. And it’s been over 20 years now.
Boo
Fear is “taught” by parents, neighborhoods, schools and through the centuries mostly by religion. It doesn’t have to be verbal. How many children do you know who are afraid of large dogs, because they sense or see mommy flinch anytime one is near? As to your comment:
.
People in these areas see mostly those who look/act/are like them. They are very homogenous areas. They also tend to have that more fundamental type religion. Anyone “different” is suspect at best and preferably to be avoided in case their “difference” is contagious. Their so call leaders/betters tell them so verbally or through their actions.
Arabs are easy to demonize – their god is ALLAH. Not LORD or Jesus. They dress differently (or at least the woman do to a certain degree). Of course these vaunted religious and secular leaders haven’t bothered or don’t know that GOD is simply an olde English word that means “all good”. These same so called leaders probably do not realize Jews call GOD by the name Jehovah. But since WWII its not considered okay to mock Jews-at least the more secular ones. They probably still keep a healthy distance from the more conservative Jews.
Know how to talk to each other hits the nail on the head. People in large cities are in forced proximity so they learn how to talk with each other. In rural areas you have more “space” and the people you see are more like you. The key of course is people to people education. Perhaps an internal “student exchange” program for high schoolers. You tend not to shoot or kill someone you know who has treated you decently.
Myself, I travel to cities, but prefer the tranquility, clean air, safety and neighborliness of rural areas. That said, I have always taught or lived within 2-3 miles of a college, so I do get diversity as most colleges in Northern New England are about 35-40% people from other places and cultures. Also, I tutor gratis at a branch library in a lower class neighborhood, because I just like kids.
I was recently invited (and paid) to participate in a focus group on public safety sponsored by my (medium-sized low crime) city and county. After what I heard from the other group members I’d have to agree with BooMan. All of the participants were white and I think I was the only working class person. Most were actually from the ‘burbs where I grew up, where nothing ever happens. All but two of the twelve were female and only four were under 40. Here’s what they were scared of:
* homeless panhandlers
* meth addicts
* “illegal aliens”
* unruly bicyclists
One woman even went so far as to say there should be a cop living on every block. Another wanted to research any neighborhood she might have to step out of her car in. I was so mad I nearly left despite the money. One younger woman and I were the only ones who felt safe walking and riding anywhere anytime. There was something so completely narcissistic about these folks thinking they were so precious that everyone’s after them.
What I heard aped was what our local media (print and tv/radio)has been beating the drum about-“You Are Unsafe in Your Homes, Cars, Neighborhoods!” and “Most Crimes Are Stranger-to-Stranger!” and the above list of “enemies”. All bullshit!
At the end I got some words in which were: citizen oversight committee of the police and that I wanted my neighbors to refrain from calling the cops on me just because they didn’t like my religion, politics, or who I live with.
One of my NY resolutions is to do what I can to help people question what they’re hearing, to encourage people to find alternate sources and most of all to spend less (or no) time around mass media including Hollywood movies. Folks, if you don’t see yourselves on the tv, in the paper, on the big screen, why are you looking at it?
here are some things I have to worry about when I leave my house. Not panhandlers, not bicyclists:
The violence erupted at about 5:35 p.m. on the 2000 block of South Ninth Street, Detective Joe Chiaro of South Detective Division said. Two males passed each other on the block and exchanged words. One of the men asked the other, “Do you want to see somebody bleed,” then slashed the teen’s left cheek, causing a six- to eight-inch gash, the detective said.
The teen needed stitches at Methodist Hospital.
Police described the assailant as a Hispanic male in his 30s, about 6-foot, 180 pounds, and wearing a dark gray Hoodie.
To report information, call South Detectives at 215-686-3013.
Teens mugged
A pair of men donning ski masks and armed with handguns mugged two 15-year-olds on the 200 block of Pierce Street.
The bandits cornered the friends at 8:15 p.m. Friday and told them to give up their cash, Detective Joe Chiaro of South Detectives said.
The men walked away with cell phones and $10.
To report information, call South Detectives at 215-686-3013.
Deliveryman held up
A Domino’s Pizza deliveryman escaped harm during an armed hold-up last Thursday.
The 19-year-old was delivering food at 7 p.m. on the 2500 block of South Beulah Street when two men approached and ordered him to give up his cash, Detective Joe Chiaro of South Detectives said.
The assailants, who were between the ages of 18 and 20, swiped $50 from the employee, then fled in an unknown direction.
To report information, call South Detectives at 215-686-3013.
Yes, pampered white women are a pain. But so are white middle class guys who decide to move to dangerous areas and brag about it. Admit it — there is something self congratulatory about this list. What do you want, a medal? OK — yes you live in a dangerous area. Yet you live there BY CHOICE so obviously feel that there is a benefit to living wherever you live. So the upside MUST outweigh the downside for YOU. And presumably, whenever the downside becomes too great — you could pick up and move out. Unlike most of the people who are providing the color for your story of courage.
People read into these types of posts a lot of what they want to read into them. For instance, some people see that I am saying any number of things that I do not intend to be saying.
I am not saying that urban people are better than non-urban people, and I am not saying that everyone that lives in Idaho or the suburbs is a scaredy-cat or a Republican, or a Bush supporter.
Here is what I am saying:
The President says we are in Iraq to fight terrorists there so we don’t have to fight them here.
He is taking away our civil liberties because he says it is necessary to protect us from terrorism.
Okay, Mr. Bush.
But for all the Americans that live in places where there is a low risk of terrorism, what Bush is really saying is that we need to do these things to protect people like me. People that live in major cities that have major symbolism, that have subway systems and skyscrapers and historic landmarks.
Even if they detonate a dirty bomb at city hall, it will be me that gets thyroid cancer, not all of the people outside the city.
So, what I am saying is that I am neither so afraid that I think these measures and policies are necessary, nor do I think these measures and policies are helpful. Quite the opposite.
So, if you are supporting these policies on my behalf, please stop.
If you are scared that you are going to be attacked, consider that the people that are much more likely to be attacked are not as scared.
And if you are afraid that we will be attacked, listen to us when we tell you that this is not a good way to protect us. We are not afraid, so you should not be afraid on our behalf.
That is really all I am trying to say.
But I do think that the fear-campaign is more effective on people that have very little fear in there day-to-day lives. That’s a choice that I won’t quibble with. Why not live in a safe neighborhood? It’s a wise decision. I’m not making a moral condemnation of people that prefer to be safe. But I do think it helps explain why many suburbanites and farmers and ranchers seem to be more afraid of terrorism than people that deal with violent crime as a daily risk.
I don’t think that people in suburbs and rural areas hear it that way. If they did hear it that way, it wouldn’t be working. Sure, they would be sad and appalled and angry if a terrorist wiped New York off the map. But that’s not what frightens them. They are worried that terrorist will destroy THEIR way of life. What IS their way of life exactly? That doesn’t matter — everybody’s way of life is different, it’s better for the president not to get too specific. Whatever your way of life is — well, it’s in trouble. And it might be in trouble even if terrorists never hit YOU. If terrorists hit all the major cities and ports and airports — even if you don’t live ANYWHERE near them, you will be adversely affected. America will stop being America and your life will change for the worse. So if you want to protect YOUR WAY OF LIFE you’d better vote republican and let us do whatever is necessary to stop those terrorists. That’s why it works. If the message was — oh we have to save people who live in urban areas or even we have to save Booman — trust me, some of these people would give money to terrorist organizations. My point is — is isn’t about YOU. It’s about ME, ME, Me.
People out here in the ‘burbs don’t want anything getting in the way of their own lives. And they’re thinking of themselves, not the folks in the cities. When I lived in Philly, my former FiL (from rural NH) used to rail against “all those drug addicts and criminals in the city with HIV” He felt that only bad folks lived in the city, and deserved whatever might befall them as a result.
What they all don’t realize is that our own governement represents the most serious threat to our way of life right now.
Exactly.
and we are in total agreement. The President’s case doesn’t make sense. That’s what I’m saying.
I’m saying that the only reason to support the President is because he is protecting me and not you. And I’m telling you not to worry about me.
If my message is heard then Bush’s message becomes inoperative.
Realistically speaking, dirty bombs and attacks on our mass transit systems are only going to effect the people in the cities where those attacks occur. No one is going to wipe anyone off the map.
Bush knows he needs to throw the nuclear bomb threat out there. But that’s bullshit. If I thought that was a major risk I would move to Australia. The risks from Saddam were really things like VX, ricin, anthrax that would only be effective on an urban population.
So, it’s a two level argument. First, you are safer than you think, and two, the people really at risk don’t want or need support for these policies.
I agree with you. But I don’t think you are going to convince anybody in the suburbs (much less rural areas) this way — you have to put yourself in THEIR shoes and tell them why the policies hurt THEM. Because if the policies don’t hurt them, they don’t care about doing away with them. It’s the me, me, me syndrome. If a policy hurts THEM — they’ll grouse about it even if its good for security. So if you want to convince THEM, you have to think like THEM and not like YOU. You lost them the first time you used the word “urban”. And long litanies about how dangerous your life is — it will just sidetrack them away from the issue and into an argument about urban crime.
I make my arguments the best I can. Perhaps there is a segment of the population that thinks the manly thing is to support the President when he gets tough and tortures people and bombs them and casts them in gulags.
Perhaps they will stop and think about how manly there are when they are more scared in their safe enclave than the liberals are in the target rich environments.
Some people want to be manly above all.
Realistically speaking, dirty bombs and attacks on our mass transit systems are only going to effect the people in the cities where those attacks occur. No one is going to wipe anyone off the map.
It’s funny but when the scare was on and backpacks were being checked for the subway, the folks interviewed weren’t scared.
The next scare control already has a good foundation. ‘They’ will use the bio-terror warfare claims and those can touch anyone, anywhere, anytime.
Did the police stop any of that? My idea of courage would be to live without a police force. I know there are looneys in my town, but I’d just as soon trust my neighbors than depend upon people who join the ‘force’ not to serve, but to dominate with weapons and little boy toys. This from a woman whose whole life was changed completely by somebody who didn’t stop at a stop sign. We can make laws and hire enforcers, but we still have to trust each other to obey those laws. Eventually we realize that we’re all in the same fucking boat, and stop talking about ‘them.’
I could give you a similar list of my little town horrors. My nephew was shot in the face by a guy who thought he was making eyes at “his” girl.
Let’s face it – the thing that’s really got us scared to death is the sociopaths in the white house.
The private industries of the security field encompassing everything from advertising to high tech military software thank you for your observation.
It’s hard work getting everyone to be too scared to live without extra security.
it’s that they’re being told to be afraid by a broad array of their respected leaders and authorities.
In order not to be afraid, the courage they need is not only against the Millions Who Hate Our Way of Life® but also the courage to doubt and disbelieve the most cherished leaders and institutions in their world.
That’s not going to happen. When a society turns evil, it brings millions along with it.
It’s not urban/suburban/rural in and of itself that is the problem. It is individual people that are the issue. I live in a little blue dot in a red state. Yes, the people in my city are democratic. Yes, the rural people are republican. But trust me. Nobody in rural missouri is voting republican because they fear that somebody is going to wipe New York (or Philadelphia or even St. Louis or Kansas City) off the map. IMHO what most people are afraid of is people who are in a different social/economic bracket than themselves. Poor people think that rich people are trying to exploit them; rich people think that poor people are trying to exploit them. The feared exploitation may take the form of violence or sweat shops or simply social snobbery — but that’s the heart of the matter. What people are most worried about in life is not losing ground, not losing whatever standard of life that they currently enjoy and hopefully improving it.
Your best post to date, IMHO.
Thanks for this diary. I am moving to a semi-urban area, Durham NC, this Wednesday, an area looked down upon for its past struggles with crime, mostly drug-related crime. The people there laugh at this characterization because the crime is concentrated in poor areas and those area’s crime rates are dropping every year as more liberal drug policies are applied, mostly in the direction of a health policy approach.
I am strongly libertarian (minus their economic voodoo, the unrealistic taxation BS) and support fighting drug addiction and its subsequent body-degradation with the health system, not the criminal system, which doesn’t treat the disease, rather its anti-social effects. If other crime occurs, throw the book at them, but treat non-violent drug crime as the health issue it is.
Durham and Chapel Hill, very close neighbors and rivals, are liberal enclaves in a sea of Republicanism and its ensuing education degradation, and Durham’s people love it there and scoff at the fear-mongering and they don’t at all mind the fearmongering actually because, well… it keeps the repub fearmongers out.
…the family of cats, dogs, horses, and humans is coming as well including a (soon-to- be) newborn, and we too scoff at the politically-oriented crime lies aimed at chapel hill and durham.
You have to remember that the United States is the Suburb of the World.USSW.
Keep that in mind.
There is no question that living (but growing up from an early age is what really makes it basic to your attiturde) in a city with all kinds of different people makes it normal for a person to accept those different kinds of people and all the problems that may go along with them.
New York had a couple of buildings knocked down and 3,000 people got killed but I don’t think they are attacking Arabs in the streets. It’s the rest of the Red States who haven’t been touched that are paranoid.
Colorado Springs a suburb of Denver is putting radiation detectors all over the city at a cost of 2 million dollars. Nobody gives a fuck about attacking them! They are crazy.
I am sorry 911 is not the big deal it has been made out to be. And there is noting but overreaction from faux country boys like Bush.
People who grow up on farms see life and death. As do people in the city. I have noticed there is no naievete amongst those people.
But people from the suburbs…not all….are often just compeletely out of it and have no idea that things die and that people can be very different from one another. The Suburbs of Western chicago….I have never in my life met people who are as compelety ignorant, crass, stupid,vile and tasteless.
Suburban people all over the country have a look. I can spot it immediately with about 95% accuracy. Round soft faces, wide open eyes, innocent looking, little or no identifying character features in the face and of course ….always smiling at nothing. There are exceptions.
I can spot a person from a city instantly. It absolutely has an effect on your facial features. Same with Europeans. I can spot a European. The faces betray a different kind of reality or perception, the eyes are different, the faces more defined, the posture more erect. The children are generally more serious and do not look like they think they are central to this world.
That’s why I say, the peasants of this world…..you ought to talk to them, they are not dumb as portrayed on TV. There is no difference between the peasants of this world and the Academics who study them. The peasants don’t have any money.
The condecension of Suburban America is only magnified by A Nation that is a Suburb itself of the WORLD.
ok i decided to read this diary more closely and really dissect your thesis;
Boo wrote;
I don’t see enough courage. I live in a rough neighborhood. There is gang activity. People get shot and killed. I’m an ethnic minority here. Everytime I leave my house I risk being mugged, or worse.
When I go to a local bar I may find myself sitting next to a gay couple, or people speaking Russian, Korean, or Arabic. Or a gangbanger deep in his cups, strapped and looking over his shoulder for an anticipated ambush.
It takes courage just to wake up in the morning and face the responsibilities of the day, but I don’t see much courage (or leadership) coming out of suburban America. Living in the city challenges your assumptions.
ANNA;
have you ever seen the rural poor? living in areas where here are virtually no social services as there are in cities across the country? how about the people who are suburban and not making it…after losing a job and having no medical benefits and being faced with sick children, mounting medical bills, foreclosure and displacement…or older people who live in white suburbia and have to sell everything they have to move somewhere cheaperso they can afford their monthly meds…i see lots of courage in people al over the country not just in cities…and i see tons of despair leading to apathy in the cities…and if you want to see leadership that came from the suburbs i will throw out howard dean and cindy sheehan among others.
Boo wrote;
The straight guys don’t bother to speculate about the sexual preferences of the men in the corner, let alone lay in wait for them outside in the parking lot.
Anna wrote;
i really want to move to your neighborhood….there is a ton of violence done against gays in the city….there is no safe place for gay people…not even in the gayborhood….i would be hard pressed to find any gay man in the gayborhood who hasnt been mugged multiple times and who doesnt fear for their safety….and lets nto even talk about the trannies…i am intimately involved with many in the city and they are continually threatened by violence.
Boo wrote;
Black people and white people may maintain a level of distrust, but they know how to talk to each other.
No one is offended, much less threatened, by hearing foreign languages. No one cares if you go to church, or if you don’t.
Anna wrote;
this is just totally not my experience in the city…i was in a small italian bakery waiting for cookies with 40 other people last fri and one of them was a black guy and when he left someone made a rascist comment and lots of others chimed in….your argument fails when you use the words “no one”….those generalizations just dont fly….if they did i would say the cities are utopias of love and i caouldnt imagine why everyone doesnt want to move there immediately.
Boo wrote;
All of this helps explain why the people of New York City and Philadelphia, and San Francisco, and Chicago, and Washington, DC are against the war.
Anna;
they are not against the war….77% of american were for the war….lots of those people were in cities….even now they are not against the war….they may be against continuing thwe war the way we are going….they may be thinking bush fucked up the war….but show me one poll of city people who are asked if they are for or against the war….city people have penises too and they dont want to feel them chopped off just as much as suburban people.
Boo wrote;
We are not afraid. Demographic changes and secularism (or ecumenicalism) do not threaten us. We value diversity. We fled the whitebread life by choice.
Anna;
Barely…people of means rarely choose to live in the city and when they do they choose rittenhouse square or pine st or places that arent as diverse economically or culturally…where do professional athletes choose to live? not in philly thats for sure…there are a lot of reasons people choose to live in the city….its where their roots are…its closer to where they work…because its what they can afford….there is still an exodus of people leaving the city…mostly people with children because quite frankly the schools suck….and there is very little diversity in neighborhood elementary schools…thats beacuse all the white kids are either in catholic school or left town when their parents decided they might as well pay higher taxes in turnersville than the tuition the catholic schools have to charge to stay open…my mom worked in neighborhood elementary schools for 20 years…if these people had the means they would get their kids out of the city….they are stuck there.
Boo wrote;
It’s not the simplicity of the heartland that I look down on, nor do I undervalue the virtues and charms of rural and suburban America. What I resent is the lack of courage.
Where are the most likely targets of a terrorist attack? I live a mile from Independence Hall, the birthplace of the Republic. My brother lives only a few miles from the White House. We know we are at risk, but we are not afraid.
Anna;
who is not afraid? i live 40 miles from the city and i am afraid…im afraid to fly…im afraid for my family and friends who live and work in the city…im afraid if something happens i wont be able to get to my kids who live in white bread suburbia but too far away for comfort…im afraid for my parents who live in the hurricane zone….im afraid what another terrorist attack will do to the economy and my ability to pay the bills….its not like i never go to the city…what if i am there when a city is hit…or what if a terrorist decides to blow up a chemical plant owned by dupont in the neighborhood next to me…or what if the suicide bombers finally get smart and start killing themselves in malls like they do in israel….i think you underestimate who is afraid and what that means to them…..i also would like you to explain the 50% of americans who are eligible to vote and dont…..i saw an article once that said those people were so overwhelmed with fear and powerlessness and that is why they didnt bother to vote….and i want to mention my mother….a good union democrat all her life…9/11 affected her even though she wasnt there….and then she was mugged on her south philly doorstep 3 years ago and she packed up and left for white bread suburbia and voted republican for the first time in her life…there are many kinds of fear and many reasons people choose to vote for bush and his policies.
Boo wrote;
Why are my red brothers and sisters out in Nebraska and Idaho more terrorized than we are? Why do they support spending copious amounts of money to kill Arabs over in Arabia? Why do they think the alternative is to kill Arabs (my neighbors) over here?
Anna;
because they dont like the idea that america isnt number one anymore…because they felt castrated by 9/11….because they feel their way of life is threatened in some unexplainable way….but they are not the only ones and to blame all this on everyone living outside a city is just ridiculous.
Boo;
Here is my advice to all the millions of Americans that fear terrorism but do not live anywhere near a terrorist’s target: Do not worry about me. I am not afraid. Tell this administration that he should stop taxing your children to protect people that do not want this form of protection. We do not agree that this is making us safer. We think he is taxing your children to make rich people more rich and that he is neglecting our cities and our poor. And that makes our lives worse, that makes our streets and neighborhoods less safe. These policies make us many new enemies that will seek to kill us in retaliation. Not you.
We do not live behind gated communities and we do not have private security forces. We walk by alleys after dark and we dodge mentally unstable people to get to our subways and to make our bus connections. When you neglect the needy, we are the people that suffer. When the dispossessed and alienated riot, they riot in Newark, Detroit, and Watts. They do not riot in Topeka, Boise, or Crawford, Texas.
When you tell us that you know better and that it is necessary for our nation’s safety and prestige that we win ‘victory’ in Iraq, and that we need to allow the President to eavesdrop on our conversations and to deny us the right to hear the charges against us in order to keep us safe…you are disrespecting us. We live here. We live among the sleeper cells. And we are not afraid. So, why are you?
Anna;
my problem is with your use of the word “we”….you cant speak for anyone but yourself….there is no we and that is part of the problem….think back to the ny transit strike …there was the perfect opportunity for “we” to fight “them” and get some economic justice….and “we” caved….if the “we” you speak of was so unified and passionate about what they believed, they would organize a strike that would bring this country to its knees in days…but there is no “we”…..and that is the problem.
I have been thinking about this diary since I read it this morning. I grew up in a typical sub-division. One road in, one road out. The streets were not tree lined. I hated it and you could not pay me enough to go back there. But…
I learned a lot living in the suburbs, because my parents took the time to show me different things. We were never afraid to go into Detroit, unlike many of my peers and their parents. It’s not the same as living there, but my exposure to rougher neighborhoods was invaluable.
By the time high school arrived, I was ready for a change and stumbled onto a teacher who made us think about our surroundings and to question everything. I have hung on to that education.
I have spent my entire teaching career in the “hood.” I am appalled by what I see, hear, and experience on a daily basis. Most of my students are good people. Many of them have experienced terrible pain, which has a grip on their psyche. They do not learn as well as they should. Many have violent outbursts at the slightest bump in the hall. This affects all of us, teachers, administrators, other students. This lowers expectations to dismal levels.
These lowered expectations excuse all levels of incompetence and negligence. A giant pothole in front of your house for a year. What do you expect? The mayor’s wife is driving a fancy new SUV, thanks to the taxpayers. What do you expect? School doesn’t have a curriculum, but is paying a curriculum director $100,000/year. What do you expect?
Painting broad strokes and even giving the appearance of sneering at gated communities will not get them to think about their stake in changing the world. Why should they? Instead, show them what they have to lose should America’s poor ever take to the streets. Show them what kindness and compassion can do for their own souls. That’s what we should be doing.
All that said, I appreciate the dialog that you’re trying to start here.
Very, very well said, sir. Bravo to you.
I think the whole notion of a WOT is the exact response the terrorists want. Terrorist events are effective because they are random. They generally will not toast an entire city or even wipe out its government, but they will randomly kill innocent people–and that’s scary because it is random and unpredictable. Because of the potential for randomness, none of us should be afraid, and that would defeat the effect of the terrorist in the first place. I live near L.A. who has had a couple of near misses and the latest talk is that something will happen via the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. There are lots of poor people on the rail and truck routes out of those ports. It is important to recognize that it is the fear and the governments interest in making us fearful that allows the hype to go on and the policies to take effect. It’s not that we think it will necessarily happen to us–we don’t want it to happen to anyone. Instead, we’ve yielded our sovereign independence to the WOT
I’m a city person who was born into a small town family. From childhood, I was bemused and bewildered over the things people chose to be afraid of.
Classmates asked me whether I was afraid to go out of my house at night because I lived on the “bad” side of town–the part of town where the low-income housing project was located and where the only two African-American families lived. Of course, the “bad” side of town was across the street from the “good” side of town, and there didn’t seem to be much to fear from the old ladies and mothers with six kids who lived in the “housing.”
I never understood (and still don’t) the need for an ethnically, racially, and economically homogeneous group of people to go out of their way to invent class divisions. My hometown has a country club–ironically, it’s right near the “housing.” There seems to be a pathological need to create an “other” to fear and despise.
When I go back to visit, my mother’s friends ask why I’m not terrified of living in the city. Perhaps next time that happens, I’ll ask them why they’re not terrified of marriage, because nearly all the violent crime in their town is domestic violence.
And maybe I’ll ask them why they’re not afraid of losing freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures–but I know what the answer would be. The wingnuts–whether they’re located in my home town or in the suburbs or in the heart of the city–are so convinced that they’re living right that they don’t believe their own personal freedoms will ever be limited. They’ll always be able to say what they want because their views are the only acceptable ones, they’ll always have freedom of religion because they’re Christian, and they’ll never be subjected to unreasonable searches and seizures because they have nothing to hide.
And why aren’t they afraid of–and angry over–the shredding by Bush & Cronies, Inc., of what little economic safety net they have? That’s just a mystery. I suppose it’s much easier to fear something that’s not a real threat–like the modern bogeyman of terrorism–than it is to look actual threats in the face.
Ultimately, though, it’s not so much where these people live and whether they live behind walls as it is that they have walled off their minds. It’s a mindset I’ve known from childhood and (often unfairly) tend to identify with the place where I grew up, but “gated communities” of closed minds can be found anywhere.
But I must comment.
I just got back from a holiday in RedStateLand, and as my boyfriend and I saw the Chicago skyline come into view after a 5 hour drive home, we were almost in tears; we were so happy to be home. Not that the holiday was miserable. It wasn’t. We just felt so lucky to live here. After the hollering and clapping died down and we merged onto Lakeshore Drive, we asked ourselves what our favorite thing about the city was.
Yes, it is beautiful, it is cool, there is a lot of good food and good theater and good shopping. But we decided what we love most about it is the connection we feel to the rest of the world, the access to culture, information, knowledge that you just don’t get outside a big city. In one week I can converse with a Muslim, a Jew, a Christian, and anarchist, a gay couple, a gangbanger, a group of children, an alderman and a homeless person. And as a result I learn more about the world. Almost as if by accident.
We are afraid of that which we do not know.
Unlike those living in gated communities, my family is not rich. They are just middle class Catholic Republicans living in a mostly white de-industrialized town where Walmart is the most convenient place to shop. What I realized this Christmas, listening to them, was not that they were bad, they were not warmongers or holier-than-thou. They just are not exposed to a lot of non-white/Catholic/middle class/Walmart shopping people. And they do want to be. They are proud of the trips they take to the nearest city to see a play or eat Indian food. They don’t want to be ignorant. But it all requires saving up money, getting a babysitter, etc. It’s a big effort.
Yes, there is the Internet, but on the Internet you control what you see. And it’s not the same. As much as I like hearing from Jerome, it’s not like being in Paris. Ya know?
I don’t know if it is just about courage. One of my friends from home, a single father, is getting shipped to Iraq next month. I wouldn’t accuse him of having a lack of courage. Just a lack of KNOWLEDGE. And EXPERIENCE.
Whereas Boo just has to go to the local bar, I just have to get on the subway, and the world, with all its grime, all its strangeness, whether we like it or not, it sitting right next to us. And it doesn’t kill us. And so we are not afraid.
My brother in law told a joke about Muslims (about the perfume made with pig pheremones keeping them away…) and my sister told him he was being racist. But he honestly thought, however wrong he was, that it was not offensive. “What? They don’t like pork. How is that offensive?”
Because to him a Muslim is some abstract notion of people who live far far away, who don’t eat pork, and who want to kill us.
To me, a Muslim is the guy who runs the corner store and makes sure I always have Limonata, and my friend who plays the bass and who comforted me when my mom died, and the boy at the bookstore who always volunteered to help with the children’s story hour.
Why would I want to keep them away?
go see the movie “North Country”. Or get the DVD, as I guess it’s not playing much in theatres any more.
Guts. Women breaking into the “man’s world” of jobs.
I think that anyone who is so frightened of their fellow humans that they are prepared to move house to a “safer” area and “stay in their car” for fear of urban predators and watch their children constantly to stave off the risk of “stranger dangers”, might be referred to as lacking moral fibre (LMF I think it used to be called) and contributing to fear in the population – for which there used, in war time, to be penalties.
I am familiar with these fears. I have long struggled with them – not for myself now – but for my children. I recognise them and seek to control them. I haven’t moved house from the inner suburb of Handsworth in Birmingham (UK) – to the continuing surprise of some traders and estate agents who imply in various ways a mismatch between my apparent income and social class and my choice of address. (Changes in urban living are fortuitously going to make our choice of home look extraordinarily far sighted to these people in another few years – but that’s another matter – and we can all be hostages to fortune.)
We let our children (boy and girl, now 21 and 16) roam the streets. When young they could stay out after dark. I let them cycle where they wanted after accompanying them on early rides and I am content for them not to make themselves look ridiculous in cycle helmets. Though for the sake of avoiding controversy I did make my daughter wear one up to the age of 12 when on the road. (The research seems to suggest that a helmet can be helpful if one falls over up to that age). They are schooled on the banal menace of speedophiles – who may well be our otherwise civilised neighbours, but in a rush or enjoying the power of their car and prone to hang around schools polluting the air when there are lots of young people milling around.
I share the occasional panics with my wife – and she with me – but did not and do not mention this to our children except to say things like “please please call in if the opportunity arises and you’re going to be home late”. Mobile phones and phone cards can be a reassurance, but they never stop the fear. The difference between us and the “burb-coward” is we know this is our problem not theirs. I do not want to stop my children knowing fear. Quite the opposite. Fear is part of being human, but I want them to know the real risks of modern life rather than having their imaginations distorted by the virtual fears of the “burb-cowards”.
So yes, I admit to feeling at least momentary terror on behalf of my children almost every day. I can get sucked into the phantasmagorial world of the “burb-coward” – so promiscuous are they about circulating their actuarial illiteracy. I, like many others, am at the receiving end of daily propaganda about the lurking dangers that threaten us all – to echo tabloid phrasing. But I have striven to leave my children out of my neuroses about these hazards of peace. I teach them statistics. I commit myself – with temerity at times – to the duties of citizenship in the matter of risk assessment. Thus some of our best shopping trips to London have been after a major bomb scare there – when there is much less congestion and the burb-cowards have stayed at home thinking another atrocity in a conurbation of 6 millions stretching across ten or more miles will be aimed at them and their children. “DIY” say I “is a lot more dangerous than the IRA”. I learned this attitude after the Birmingham pub bombings in 1974. I was fearful of going into town the next evening to night clubs. My West Indian friend of those times chided me with playing into the hands of the terrorists. I fought my temerity and went.
If there is a dreadful fate awaiting me or my wife or my children or others I love, it is very unlikely to come from the things that motivate the burb-cowards. Isn’t the most dangerous place for us all our kitchen – full of knives and relatives? I embrace the fable of that appointment in Samara.
I have lived in 50 years of peace. I owe it to those who lived through the previous 50 years – and indeed those who suffer real terror and deprivation in other parts of the world right now – not to be timid. I will not avoid talking to young children in the park or streets for fear of having my motives impugned. I don’t deny the presence of paedophiles, rapists, muggers and psychopaths – but I am alert to the minor risk they pose in the context of hazards in the world. This is not Flanders in 1914-18, or the killing fields of Cambodia, or Buchenwald and its siblings or the gulags and the endless catalogue of contemporary world horror and injustice to which every first world citizen should have their attention directed as a qualification for citizenship.
Fighting one’s own tendency to cowardice pays. The coward dies a thousand times and is forever getting stuck in traffic. I feel the fear and grasp that it is my duty to those who face real terrors not to succumb to it; to welcome strangers – with discretion; to embrace the city but watch the road; to enjoy its streets at all hours; to teach my children to face the real hazards rather than the medieval inventions of the “burb-cowards”.