foolish
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Yesterday a teenage kid shot another teenage kid right next to Trumbullplex Corner Haus and The Mulberry. Mulberry folks watched the whole thing go down in broad daylight. The kid is dead. This is the 2nd shooting in a month within close range of my house, the other one at a stoplight that I can see from my front porch. The illusion of safety, just because there’s cops hired by a for-profit university and ‘new money’ in the neighborhood, is a joke that the yuppies tell themselves. Safe for whom? I’m thinking about statistics. I’m thinking about rising tension, the threat of new money to the poor and working class, who have to fight tooth and nail to carve out space and not be erased in this gentrified place. I’m thinking about all the white Woodbridgers I know (and let’s be real, most of the Woodbridgers I know are white) who don’t even think of the families in the Projects as part of the neighborhood, even when they are standing in line at the same damn liquor store together every evening. I’m thinking about a conversation I once overheard two black teenagers having on the Canfield bridge:
Girl: “… stupid and dangerous, you wouldn’t believe what I saw yesterday, some white lady walking her baby in a stroller down the street by herself, in the evening, like it’s no thing, what the hell was she thinking??”
Boy: “Man, it’s becoming like the fuckin’ suburbs ‘round here, cops everywhere, that’s what”
Girl: “NO. These white people move down here, they have no clue what goes on! They don’t know what it’s really like! They don’t know shit. It’s still really real down here. It’s real down here for me.”
Boy: “Yeah, for you it is, but for them, it’s just like the fuckin’ suburbs.”
Girl: *shaking her head*: “Whatever. This is Detroit, and that’s foolish.”
This is Detroit, and I’m still in love with it, somehow, trying to buy a house, to plant roots, to be a part of some kind of healing, or at least not bring harm and first wave gentrification with me wherever I go… knowing that I have the privilege of mobility, I can choose to stay or go, I know how to work the system if we get hard up enough, I’ve got options to turn to before hustling, and I know that, for the most part, the cops are on my side by default. But I’m not insulated from the violence. Nobody is. And I am capable of a more subtle kind of violence that comes part and parcel with my privilege, if I am not intentional about the space I take up and the effect my actions have on my community. Living with white privilege and middle-class education in a city with a long history of race and class disparity and tension requires some serious self-examination and awareness to not be a dick. Good intent is not magic. I have to be willing to do the work, or else go back to where I came from-- and take the ignorant suburban bullshit back with me. Ain't nobody got time for a fool turning a blind eye.
Yesterday a teenage kid shot another teenage kid right next to Trumbullplex Corner Haus and The Mulberry. Mulberry folks watched the whole thing go down in broad daylight. The kid is dead. This is the 2nd shooting in a month within close range of my house, the other one at a stoplight that I can see from my front porch. The illusion of safety, just because there’s cops hired by a for-profit university and ‘new money’ in the neighborhood, is a joke that the yuppies tell themselves. Safe for whom? I’m thinking about statistics. I’m thinking about rising tension, the threat of new money to the poor and working class, who have to fight tooth and nail to carve out space and not be erased in this gentrified place. I’m thinking about all the white Woodbridgers I know (and let’s be real, most of the Woodbridgers I know are white) who don’t even think of the families in the Projects as part of the neighborhood, even when they are standing in line at the same damn liquor store together every evening. I’m thinking about a conversation I once overheard two black teenagers having on the Canfield bridge:
Girl: “… stupid and dangerous, you wouldn’t believe what I saw yesterday, some white lady walking her baby in a stroller down the street by herself, in the evening, like it’s no thing, what the hell was she thinking??”
Boy: “Man, it’s becoming like the fuckin’ suburbs ‘round here, cops everywhere, that’s what”
Girl: “NO. These white people move down here, they have no clue what goes on! They don’t know what it’s really like! They don’t know shit. It’s still really real down here. It’s real down here for me.”
Boy: “Yeah, for you it is, but for them, it’s just like the fuckin’ suburbs.”
Girl: *shaking her head*: “Whatever. This is Detroit, and that’s foolish.”
This is Detroit, and I’m still in love with it, somehow, trying to buy a house, to plant roots, to be a part of some kind of healing, or at least not bring harm and first wave gentrification with me wherever I go… knowing that I have the privilege of mobility, I can choose to stay or go, I know how to work the system if we get hard up enough, I’ve got options to turn to before hustling, and I know that, for the most part, the cops are on my side by default. But I’m not insulated from the violence. Nobody is. And I am capable of a more subtle kind of violence that comes part and parcel with my privilege, if I am not intentional about the space I take up and the effect my actions have on my community. Living with white privilege and middle-class education in a city with a long history of race and class disparity and tension requires some serious self-examination and awareness to not be a dick. Good intent is not magic. I have to be willing to do the work, or else go back to where I came from-- and take the ignorant suburban bullshit back with me. Ain't nobody got time for a fool turning a blind eye.
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