In the Ghetto

I was talking to my best friend, JN, last night about our neighborhood and we came to this conclusion: living in the ghetto is making us racist.

For the past 7 years, off and on, but mostly on, I have lived in one of two neighborhoods in New York City, and they have both been in the ghetto. I live there for two reasons: 1. lack of funds/too much fiscal common sense to live elsewhere in the city and 2. bigger apartments.

Now, I absolutely hate it when people automatically assume that the ghetto is more dangerous than other parts of the city. Just because a neighborhood is predominantly black does not inherently mean it is more dangerous, and I fight this accusation every time I hear it. I have not once been mugged, robbed, or attacked while living in my chosen ghettos. I have, however, witnessed black people perpetuating on a daily basis the stereotypes that plague them, and it infuriates me.

Many people in America think that all black people are uneducated, cannot speak proper English, wear their clothes in ridiculous ways, have no manners or respect for anyone, are violent, lazy, etc. We all know that this cannot be true for all blacks, just as it is true for some whites, Asians, Hispanics, and so forth. There are bad seeds in every bunch, are there not?

But what really burns me up is seeing those assumptions played out as truth every day by so many members of my community. There is a constant display of ignorance, pride, violence (minor violence, but still), arrogance, disrespect, and more in my neighborhood.

Kids, sometimes very young kids, are out until all hours of the night, screaming down the streets, breaking open fire hydrants, vandalizing buildings and cars, playing music extremely loudly, throwing trash all over the street, and there is not a single parent or guardian in sight. And if there is, on those rare occasions, nothing is done to correct the behavior of those children. There is no consideration for the people who might be sleeping because they have school or work the next day. If the cops are called, everything quiets down until the cops leave, and then it starts right back up. Couples will stand outside apartment windows, again with no thoughts to the possibly sleeping people inside, yelling and swearing out their feelings to one another over every minor indiscretion, including but not limited to, the borrowing of CDs, with whom someone hung out, what one friend told him/her about the other person and how they now busted, and the like.

Don't get me wrong - I am perfectly aware that there are neighborhoods filled with white people who behave exactly the same - I have seen these places on COPS many times. And the thing is, seeing that behavior makes me "racist" against those people, too. Racist against White Trash. (Should I call this classism? I am classist against WT?) However, as I have never lived in one of those WT neighborhoods, but instead have always experienced nothing but law-abiding, respectful, clean, and friendly white neighborhoods, this awful type of behavior is only associated with black people in my head.

I hate that this is happening in my skull, and I know it's not right on any level. But sometimes I just want to scream at every person in my neighborhood that I see acting like this and tell them, "THIS is why other races think all black people are ___________(fill in the blank)! YOU are showing them that this is TRUE and CORRECT!"

But for some reason, I don't think they would care.