Just before noon—as I like to hear the Episcopal church bells ring while out and about—I walked down to the store to pick up some groceries and had three human interactions, all with black males. Since we are in a count down to the next round of innocent permissive civil unrest I am interested in psychological landscape of the neighborhood.
There was the polite young man who rang out my order, called me sir, and wished me a good day with no less sincerity than he did for his black customers.
There was the older black gentleman in a Cadillac that was almost as old as myself, who waved me across the street with a smile, rather than make me wait to cross as young people, black and white, were doing. I have no right to, or expectation of, this courteous treatment. But he is what he is, and I appreciate that.
I stopped by the graffiti-covered neighborhood watch sign, the church yard, the hedgerow, the ATM machine, the church stairs, and the back lot behind the bar, all places where I have been threatened, or attacked, or followed, and/or know people who have been successfully attacked, and did what I should have done when I moved in—paced off the number of steps from the ambush point to the access point. The access points range from the stairs and doorways where thugs skulk, to the parking lane where the drive up bum-rushers pull over to dismount.
In all cases, the space between the access point and the ambush point was three paces, the revolution of a hurled tomahawk, I recall. It's a shame I gave mine away. I have a hay hook now, instead, no longer trusting to my blown shoulder to throw anything.
As I walked back—and in general, over the course of this past week—I became overpowered by the sense that something is very diferent from last year when autumn fell, and from times prior to the April Race Purge.
Foot traffic is normal, but most white pedestrians are absent, replaced by darker folks. Car traffic is at 30%, and bicycle and skateboard traffic that features school age youths of the innocent unarmed ebony type, is very dense, with one scout per every quarter mile of main road. The scout that is covering this zone, this noon, for whoever he is covering it, was carrying skateboard uphill, parallel to me as I returned home. He shadowed me—as I dressed up like white man of record today, collared button shirt and all—not in any way threatening or betraying intent, but incredibly curious about a nondescript and apparently middle class white man in middle age. He should have been checking out the 20-year-old stripper stuffing her outfits in the back of her car as she slung her baby in its carriage in the other hand.
As it turned out, he and I were both headed back across White Avenue. Now that he was on the level he switched his grip on his skateboard to the left hand, preparing to scoot off. He looked over his shoulder at me on the north side of the street, and at the eastbound traffic—three cars and a van—turning onto the south side of the street, and ahead again at the westbound traffic on the north side of the street.
White Avenue is a simple two lane secondary street. The oncoming westbound traffic consisted of one Baltimore City Police cruiser occupied by a white cop who appeared to be about 35 years of use. This was at 12:04 this afternoon.
The boy, about 5' 10" and 130 ponds, stepped out into the middle of the westbound lane and skated at the oncoming cop car.
The cop car stopped.
The cop did not inform the boy that he was breaking the jaywalking law—which is often bullshit and has resulted in a lot of men and women being attacked and beaten by cops for crossing the street away from a corner—but could have sensibly been enforced here.
The cop waited patiently as the boy stopped, picked up his skateboard, stepped back to the center line, and glared at him as he cruised past. Not a word exchanged between the two, not even a "Please be careful out here, son," from the cop. As the cop cruised by me the boy sped off down the middle of the westbound lane, into traffic, which yielded for this prince of the shitty city.
I have spent a large portion of my life matching up myself and others with fighters, training fighters, and observing fighters, and can tell you at a glance, when two fighters meet in the ring or on the sidewalk, who has the psychological advantage, the arrogance, the confidence, the audacity, the will to dominate his environment, that generally dictates the course of events. Only when we get to top fighters do we see skill sets tilting such balances.
I don't know what you think about what I just described, or what you would think about the 14-year-old boy, who yesterday, on a bicycle, peddling lazily, was looking me up and down, checking for the police chopper overhead, and craning his neck over traffic at car rooftops, and overall behaving more like spotter for an Islamist RPG man than some kid on a bike, but I know what I think, and it's not good.
One tip, if you are among my handful of left-leaning liberal readers, and do not find anything alarming about the interaction between Skateboard Boy and Pale Poleese, than don't walk about on foot in Baltimore City or like environs, and pray to your God Dollar that the car you have been blessed with never breaks down in one of those neighborhoods you speed through on your way from your cozy nest to your soul-eating job.
JL:
Remember the great brouhaha about the skater dude and the po-leece at the Inner Harbor a couple of years back?
More of the effect of "I've got rights" and the rest of you employed people and folks trying to act what used to be normally don't. At least, as long as I've got a cellphone that takes photos and dialogue. Granted, the cop went overboard, in response to what he perceived as (shudder) disrespect.
Why try? Cops are in a no win, whatever you do situation.
To paraphrase Mencken, the peepul will get the law they deserve, and get it good and hard. Then the whole dumbass cycle will start over again, with a new class of the clueless
crying out for help against the seething hordes of innocent yuths.
What was it the Rev'rum Riot was preaching on the bus, 'bout the bottom gonna be on de top? I suspect his congregation will get him first, but that's the romance of the ghetto, folks.
Ain't no cure for the hoodrat blues, y'all.
Mr. Diversity
I'm sure that the supervisors in the BPD have told the cops under their command not to get suckered into any interactions with innocent unarmed black youth that do not involve drugs and guns.
Loon friend said one time he was crossing the border into Canada, and the customs guy asked if he had any drugs or firearms? He was thinking about saying "Yeah, what would you like?"
They have NO sense of humor, and common sense prevailed.
Mr. Travel Tips