"Being White in Philly" (it's apparently tough)

The Something Awful Forums > Main > General Bullshit > "Being White in Philly" (it's apparently tough)

TheNobleNegro: Feb 27, 2013; by Y Kant Ozma Post

Oh poo poo, son.

quote:

Philly Magazine

Being White in Philly

Whites, race, class, and the things that never get said.

My younger son goes to Temple, where he’s a sophomore. This year he’s living in an apartment with two friends at 19th and Diamond, just a few blocks from campus. It’s a dangerous neighborhood. Whenever I go see Nick, I get antsy and wonder what I was thinking, allowing him to rent there.

One day, before I pick him up for lunch, I stop to talk to a cop who’s parked a block away from Nick’s apartment.

“Is he already enrolled for classes?” the cop says when I point out where my son lives.

Well, given that it’s December, I think so. But his message is clear: Bad idea, this neighborhood. A lot of burglaries and robberies. Temple students are prime prey, the cop says.

Later, driving up Broad Street as I head home to Mount Airy, I stop at a light just north of Lycoming and look over at some rowhouses. One has a padlocked front door. A torn sheet covering the window in that door looks like it might be stained with sewage. I imagine not a crackhouse, but a child, maybe several children, living on the other side of that stained sheet. Plenty of children in Philadelphia live in places like that. Plenty live on Diamond, where my son rents, where there always seem to be a lot of men milling around doing absolutely nothing, where it’s clearly not a safe place to be.

I’ve shared my view of North Broad Street with people—white friends and colleagues—who see something else there: New buildings. Progress. Gentrification. They’re sunny about the area around Temple. I think they’re blind, that they’ve stopped looking. Indeed, I’ve begun to think that most white people stopped looking around at large segments of our city, at our poorest and most dangerous neighborhoods, a long time ago. One of the reasons, plainly put, is queasiness over race. Many of those neighborhoods are predominantly African-American. And if you’re white, you don’t merely avoid them—you do your best to erase them from your thoughts.

At the same time, white Philadelphians think a great deal about race. Begin to talk to people, and it’s clear it’s a dominant motif in and around our city. Everyone seems to have a story, often an uncomfortable story, about how white and black people relate.

Take a young woman I’ll call Susan, whom I met recently. She lost her BlackBerry in a biology lab at Villanova and Facebooked all the class members she could find, “wondering if you happened to pick it up or know who did.” No one had it. There was one black student in the class, whom I’ll call Carol, who responded: “Why would I just happen to pick up a BlackBerry and if this is a personal message I’m offended!”

Susan assured her that she had Facebooked the whole class. Carol wrote: “Next time be careful what type of messages you send around and what you say in them.”

After that, when their paths crossed at school, Carol would avoid eye contact with Susan, wordless. What did I do? Susan wondered. The only explanation she could think of was Vanilla-nova—the old joke about the school’s distinct lack of color, its perceived lack of welcome to African-Americans. Susan started making an effort to say hello when she saw Carol, and eventually they acted as if nothing had happened. The BlackBerry incident—it probably goes without saying—was never discussed.

Another story: Dennis, 26, teaches math in a Kensington school. His first year there, fresh out of college, one of his students, an unruly eighth grader, got into a fight with a girl. Dennis told him to stop, he got into Dennis’s face, and in the heat of the moment Dennis called the student, an African-American, “boy.”

The student went home and told his stepfather. The stepfather demanded a meeting with the principal and Dennis, and accused Dennis of being racist; the principal defended his teacher. Dennis apologized, knowing how loaded the term “boy” was and regretting that he’d used it, though he was thinking, Why would I be teaching in an inner-city school if I’m a racist? The stepfather calmed down, and that would have been the end of it, except for one thing: The student’s behavior got worse. Because now he knew that no one at the school could do anything, no matter how badly he behaved.

Confusion, misread intentions, bruised feelings—everyone has not only a race story, but a thousand examples of trying to sort through our uneasiness on levels large and trivial. I do, too. My rowhouse in Mount Airy is on a mostly African-American block; it’s middle-class and friendly—in fact, it’s the friendliest street my family has ever lived on, with block parties and a spirit of watching out for each other. Whether a neighbor is black or white seems to be of no consequence whatsoever...

Blah blah blah, four thousand more words

http://www.phillymag.com/articles/white-philly/

It's five thousand words, so I'm not going to post the whole thing. It's actually from two weeks ago, but the reason I think it's interesting is because it was published by a major Philly magazine (Philly magazine) and it warranted enough discussion that the Mayor of Philadelphia Michael Nutter felt the need to publicly condemn it and demand an investigation by the Philadelphia Human Rights Commission (a reasoned response in my opinion, personally I would have had the author stand trial for war crimes).

Nutter put out an open letter and then responded at a city council meeting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wdbgw0JvpaU

Before anyone gets pissy, the article's not completely "wah wah white people are oppressed" (just mostly "wah wah we can't talk about black people or they'll call us racist"). It's pretty boring. It's a handful of conversations the author recounts with numerous white residents, mostly about local crime. Surprisingly, there wasn't any griping about the dreaded flash mob craze from a few years back. The author himself seems to struggle at times to prod his subjects to say something negative about black people even in the face of negative experiences (one guy nonchalantly mentions being repeatedly threatened by his drug-dealing black neighbor and just shrugs it off). The most outspoken person is a Russian woman who complains about street harassment from black men. There's also the obligatory old white folks talking about "this city has changed".

Obviously crime is an indicator of economic misery, so there doesn't seem to much of a point getting into why black people in Philly commit more crime than whites (there are more black people in Philly than whites, anyway). One thing I pulled out of this otherwise lovely article was what the Russian woman mentioned about street harassment. Whether people like it or not, there is a cultural difference in Philly and most major cities these days between whites and blacks when it comes to approaching women. And it's something people are uneasy talking about. Black men are simply much more aggressive in trying to flag down women in the streets, buses or subways. Anyone who seriously denies that is just being an obstinate jackass for the sake of "not racist!" and is worried about giving in to the old stereotype of hyper-sexual black rapists. I know a lot of people who work in Philly and this seems to be their biggest complaint about the city. Personally, I can remember walking through some parts of Brooklyn years ago with my then (half-Puerto Rican) girlfriend and even if it was obvious that she was taken, every guy who walked past us had something to say. Dressing modestly made no difference. The second we crossed into Williamsburg, it stopped. The white kids in skinny jeans just seemed to mind their own business. A lot of women are afraid to walk out their doors, take the bus or subway to work. For some it's a daily nightmare that they'll end up trapped next to douchebag on the bus who will keep telling them how beautiful they look and then finally snap and punch them in the face when they continue to ignore him.

Here's a few articles that are actually helpful when discussing the realities of everyday life for a lot of minority women in this country in urban areas:

http://www.racialicious.com/2011/10...afe-in-seattle/
http://www.racialicious.com/2010/06...s-x-harassment/

To be fair to black men though, George Godley is white. And it would take an army of hyper-aggressive black men working the streets 24/7 to make up for an hour of his creepiness. For those of you who don't know George Godley is, it's best if you remain ignorant.

Anyone here from Philly?

I would also like to preemptively warn you that if your posts in this thread aren't to my liking that I will report you to the Something Awful Human Rights Commission, currently chaired by HATE CURES TRANNYS and Ironic War Criminal.

# ? Mar 20, 2013 20:24

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# ? May 22, 2013 05:13

Dusseldorf: Mar 29, 2005

You're TPMcCarthiera, right?

# ? Mar 20, 2013 20:29

the chief v2: Apr 15, 2010

How come the anecdotal evidence in the article is poo poo but your own is fact?

# ? Mar 20, 2013 20:30

WastedJoker: Oct 29, 2011; Fiery the angels fell. Deep thunder rolled around their shoulders... burning with the fires of Orc.

She's clearly never seen Louis CK

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG4f9zR5yzY

# ? Mar 20, 2013 20:31

YouTuber: Jul 31, 2004

Diamond street, on certain stretches where prime real estate like Kensington exists is very very violent and most of the murders or violence you hear about is along it. However, it's not just "white peoples" that have a problem in North Philly. It's anyone not a part of the local cliques/gangs. White people are easier to identify as being solo by these cliques since they are after all comprised of mostly black people.

# ? Mar 20, 2013 20:35

SheepNameKiller: Jun 19, 2004

YouTuber posted:

Diamond street, on certain stretches where prime real estate like Kensington exists is very very violent and most of the murders or violence you hear about is along it. However, it's not just "white peoples" that have a problem in North Philly. It's anyone not a part of the local cliques/gangs. White people are easier to identify as being solo by these cliques since they are after all comprised of mostly black people.

Even in situations like this, what usually happens is most of the violence is black on black violence anyway. White people sometimes are robbed by virtue of looking like they don't belong there, but often the more violent crimes happen to rival gang members. But no one cares about those people, because, even before taking race into account, being poor and in a gang makes us think of all of them as subhuman.

# ? Mar 20, 2013 20:37

max4me: Jun 15, 2003; if my writing looks like work of a dyslexic monkey, well I am one of the two

If my experience has taught me anything. American culture has its privileged classes, white, wealthy, male, etc.

The popular notion among those classes is to deny their privilege and deny racism, class ism, sexism as being issues because they are not real because "hey I dont experience ergo its not real" leading to a strangely warped world view.

One of the weird side effects is that it makes these people rather sensitive when they encounter discrimination (which doesnt exits in their world) and its shocking when they get a taste of reality.

# ? Mar 20, 2013 20:37

Talkc: Aug 2, 2010; Mizuki! Mizuki! Mizuki!
***DEVASTATINGLY HANDSOME***

I saw something about this in a resturant with fox news playing. Some white guy, and a fake blonde were defending the thing, talking about how it should be okay to talk about race.

The whole thing made me laugh. Of course its okay to talk about race! JUST DONT BE A RACIST! Being able to talk about race doesnt mean just bad mouth another race.

All this bluster over the black population seems to be just an excuse for some rich white guy to justify his fears and prejudice.

# ? Mar 20, 2013 20:39

A Pale Horse: Jul 29, 2007; Show those chumps in Atlanta and Philly what real hatred is.

Dusseldorf posted:

You're TPMcCarthiera, right?

Almost certainly.

# ? Mar 20, 2013 20:43

A Pale Horse: Jul 29, 2007; Show those chumps in Atlanta and Philly what real hatred is.

God dammit, double post. First one ever.

# ? Mar 20, 2013 20:44

Pochoclo: Feb 4, 2008; I like bread

Well, you see, black people are not victims to crime themselves, because

# ? Mar 20, 2013 20:45

Hilarion: Mar 23, 2008; This is the Dawning of the Age of Hilarious

max4me posted:

If my experience has taught me anything. American culture has its privileged classes, white, wealthy, male, etc.

There is no American culture, buddy. America is a test to which cultures may, in certain circumstances, be put. By any metric you can imagine, Asian-Americans outperform white Americans. Schools, loans, wealth, you name it. And it's not because they're a privileged class, it's because they brought with them a successful culture.

# ? Mar 20, 2013 20:45

President Ark: May 16, 2010; Looks like you got a good deal there!

I live in Philly. I haven't noticed what you mentioned about black guys being more aggressive about harassing women on public transportation at all, and I ride SEPTA all the time since I don't have a car. I haven't seen any exceptional amount of douchebaggery from people from any particular race or creed and if I'm walking at night I'm more likely to be freaked out by the skeezy white guy who looks like he subsists on a healthy diet of meth than the average black guy I see.

Basically what I'm saying is yeah you're a racist, congratulations on being an rear end in a top hat

# ? Mar 20, 2013 20:49

ImpAtom: May 24, 2007; Are you mocking me?

Man, I wish someone had told me. I thought that I had it relatively easier compared to others. If only I understood the suffering I had as a white person in Philadelphia.

# ? Mar 20, 2013 20:49

DongsMcMurphy: Feb 24, 2013

Well I can't see any sort of racist ulterior motive to this post from someone with the name The Noble Negro, nope.
Warmest regards, a poor oppressed white man from Philly.

DongsMcMurphy fucked around with this message at Mar 20, 2013 around 20:52

# ? Mar 20, 2013 20:49

SheepNameKiller: Jun 19, 2004

Hilarion posted:

There is no American culture, buddy. America is a test to which cultures may, in certain circumstances, be put. By any metric you can imagine, Asian-Americans outperform white Americans. Schools, loans, wealth, you name it. And it's not because they're a privileged class, it's because they brought with them a successful culture.

What is this culture exactly? Because Asian Americans are easily the most diverse immigrant group and probably have far less in common with one another culturally than Hispanic Americans, the next largest group.

# ? Mar 20, 2013 20:50

Un chien andalou: Oct 22, 2008; mmm... 20 year old cookies

SheepNameKiller posted:

What is this culture exactly? Because Asian Americans are easily the most diverse immigrant group and probably have far less in common with one another culturally than Hispanic Americans, the next largest group.

Because asians are good at math or something. Yeah, that's it...

# ? Mar 20, 2013 20:53

YouTuber: Jul 31, 2004

SheepNameKiller posted:

Even in situations like this, what usually happens is most of the violence is black on black violence anyway. White people sometimes are robbed by virtue of looking like they don't belong there, but often the more violent crimes happen to rival gang members. But no one cares about those people, because, even before taking race into account, being poor and in a gang makes us think of all of them as subhuman.

Oh yes, certainly so. Most of the violence is done by people who know eachother feuding over nonsense. When that local rapper Joey Jihad got knocked out on video merely for not repping the street he was on both the camera man and the guy who socked him got killed. All three knew eachother, if not personally through people they know. White people violence goes by the name of Pagans and Hells Angels. Black people violence is named poo poo like Bloods and Crips. Same poo poo different locations.

# ? Mar 20, 2013 20:55

LEGIT WAR CRIMINAL: Aug 29, 2008; by Y Kant Ozma Post

TheNobleNegro posted:

I would also like to preemptively warn you that if your posts in this thread aren't to my liking that I will report you to the Something Awful Human Rights Commission, currently chaired by HATE CURES TRANNYS and Ironic War Criminal.

I am unironically a war criminal thank you very much.

LEGIT WAR CRIMINAL fucked around with this message at Mar 20, 2013 around 20:58

# ? Mar 20, 2013 20:56

mcsquared: Nov 19, 2005

Hilarion posted:

There is no American culture, buddy. America is a test to which cultures may, in certain circumstances, be put. By any metric you can imagine, Asian-Americans outperform white Americans. Schools, loans, wealth, you name it. And it's not because they're a privileged class, it's because they brought with them a successful culture.

gently caress off with this model minority horseshit.

# ? Mar 20, 2013 20:56

themrguy: Dec 15, 2008

Racism isn't really a binary only affects people of a certain ethnicity type thing. It's not at all impossible for people in what is traditionally considered the dominant group to be the victims of racist harassment. poo poo, in the Rwandan genocide most of the victims were members of the racial group that dominated the upper class.

# ? Mar 20, 2013 20:57

MD2020: May 29, 2003

Man, you don't know how it is.

I used to live in Tacony, but live in Jersey now. But I still work in the city and occasionally come into Center City with my wife, and being white I always have certain thoughts in the back of my mind:

Are my dogs going to get along with the other dogs in Rittenhouse Park?

Will the homemade soap store on 13th and Sansom have those specific scents I like, or do I have to wait for the new batch?

How much longer is it to the next Restaurant Week? Our friends want to try some new places.

Some days, I don't know how I get by.

# ? Mar 20, 2013 21:00

Yodzilla: Apr 29, 2005; †

As a white person who lives in Philly I found that article to be completely horseshit.

MD2020 posted:

Man, you don't know how it is.

I used to live in Tacony, but live in Jersey now. But I still work in the city and occasionally come into Center City with my wife, and being white I always have certain thoughts in the back of my mind:

Are my dogs going to get along with the other dogs in Rittenhouse Park?

Will the homemade soap store on 13th and Sansom have those specific scents I like, or do I have to wait for the new batch?

How much longer is it to the next Restaurant Week? Our friends want to try some new places.

Some days, I don't know how I get by.

Restaurant week man...that poo poo sneaks up on you. Beer week too.

# ? Mar 20, 2013 21:00

SheepNameKiller: Jun 19, 2004

MD2020 posted:

Man, you don't know how it is.

I used to live in Tacony, but live in Jersey now. But I still work in the city and occasionally come into Center City with my wife, and being white I always have certain thoughts in the back of my mind:

Are my dogs going to get along with the other dogs in Rittenhouse Park?

Will the homemade soap store on 13th and Sansom have those specific scents I like, or do I have to wait for the new batch?

How much longer is it to the next Restaurant Week? Our friends want to try some new places.

Some days, I don't know how I get by.

Don't forget crossing the street and crossing back again in order to avoid walking past ethnic groups that you find terrifying.

# ? Mar 20, 2013 21:01

Ofc. Sex Robot BPD: Aug 30, 2008

I guess it really is always funny in Sillydelphia!

# ? Mar 20, 2013 21:06

Hilarion: Mar 23, 2008; This is the Dawning of the Age of Hilarious

SheepNameKiller posted:

What is this culture exactly? Because Asian Americans are easily the most diverse immigrant group and probably have far less in common with one another culturally than Hispanic Americans, the next largest group.

The example is irrelevant. The exact same point could be made about Jews, who, although internally diverse, share a culture that cherishes frugality, hard work, and intellectual learning. Somehow Jews have done relatively well no matter where they went and under whose rule they were.

# ? Mar 20, 2013 21:13

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# ? May 22, 2013 05:13

Pipski: Apr 18, 2004; I become
LONDON MALE!
My active force is
POWERDON!

_{...cleansiness...}

I've got zero idea why that immensely tedious article warrants a thread. So I'm closing it.

# ? Mar 20, 2013 21:13

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