A reader named SidVic, who has a real job and cannot write stuff like this under his Government name in the looming shadow of Mother Correct, has left such a good comment on an evasion piece that it simply must be posted as an article.
I took a position at U of M School of Medicine in 1996. I worked on Greene Street. I was in Japan at the time I accepted the position and they sent me an orientation packet. I digress, but my background is strict Scot-Irish southern. Anyways the advice for Baltimore, in this UM packet, was as follows: wear comfortable running shoes, don't carry items, keep hands free, walk close to street not buildings, telephones with direct access to security are on every block (plus they assured that if you were incapacitated that it was just necessary to get the phone out of the cradle and the cavalry would arrive!) etc etc....
I was robust young and remember laughing it off. My Jap friends were genuinely shocked and concerned. Back then I regularly re-grew appendages when they had gotten broken off....
Anyways, despite being a complete idiot I seldom ventured into the red zone of your map (good work on the map by the way). I did eat and park north of the market (found cheap roof lot), however. So I found occasion to travel in the red zone, sometime late. A couple of times I was very alarmed among a large group of youngish black males, but I never had any serious problems. I made eye contact and smiled broadly at all. I was surprised that northern negroes seemed surly compared to those I was used to in the south (not all—some were sweet as hell).
I remember telling a black Baltimore friend (he was West Indies originally—they are good people) who was quizzing me on how I found Baltimore about my strategy of grinning like a fool. He laughed uproariously and told me to keep with what was working.
In retrospect, I believe that I was lucky mostly, and that my smiley demeanor was unusual enough to keep them off me.
SidVic, thank you. It is my opinion that your strategy worked because the hoodrats thought you were insane! According to noted African American scholar T. Spoone Slickens, “One of the most common phobias among blacks is fear of retarded white folks.”
I had something similar. For two summers in the late 80s, the Baltimore Rec Department sent me to various summer day camps to perform my comedy juggling shows. I pull up to my first gig and about half-a-dozen colors-wearing gang bangers are sitting on the steps. I was a skinny white guy wearing a Hawaiian shirt, matching color Chuck Taylors, rainbow suspenders, and black tuxedo pants. They didn't bother me at all. Must have been the three baseball bats sticking out of my backpack and the can of gasoline I was carrying (for my torches) that made them think I was probably completely batshit insane.