Racism in my hood 


Its ubiquitous, and you gotta fight it. 

The other day when I ran into all those people at the 675k house down the street .... the woman with whom I was talking said something that really bothers me....

She was talking about where she lives in Annandale (not far away at all) and how much it has changed... with "all those Koreans and Hispanics moving in... ugh." I told her how much I love Arlington for exactly that reason and she looked at me funny and said, "No you don't understand. They have taken over and bought all the houses and they changed all the stores into little markets and restaurants and its not the cute little town it once was." I reiterated that it is the nice thing about living here that you have so many different kinds of people around and its great to have access to all these different foods etc. She looked at me like I was crazy.

I have been thinking about what that meant. She was basically asking me to validate her discomfort with people who were different from her. My response was, "Imagine how they felt when they moved in and everyone and everything was white." She didn't get it. Maybe she couldn't even get it.

But that is something we white folk are bred to carry around - this sense that it is OUR space, our town, our neighborhood. And THOSE INVADERS come in and change everything.

I really love my neighborhood. It is a 50's built place - with a few older houses. It is this wild mix of original owners and new families, including families relatively new to the US. There are white, black, hispanic, and even a few Muslim families spread around. One neighbor complained to me about "Those Hispanics" across the street where two families bought the house together and lived in it together. Why is that a problem? I see it as living the American Dream as best you can at the time. These folks want to own a home to get ahead economically. Good for them! They ought to pursue it. If they are bad neighbors who party too much and leave trash all over, that is another issue. But bad neighbors come in all flavors.

I guess I feel like we oughta be past all this - it is silly to get stressed out about some other group taking over your neighborhood - if you don't like it, join the white flight parade. Shoot. But, it seems to me that that is one of the pleasures of urban living. You get surrounded by so many different people with a wide range of experience and you get to live a broader life than you would out in Gainesville. or Short Pump. 

Posted: Thu - November 27, 2003 at 12:06 PM          
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