Nate and I visited them this past week. They live in one of the worst, most dangerous parts of LR. The past several years I have been in some of the toughest parts of town, but that night I was more fearful than I can remember. Maybe it was because we had to walk around a couple of buildings in the dark looking for their apartment. And that gunshot we heard probably didn't help.
I talked to one of my friends who grew up in a hood like this one and he said there are only two reasons why two middle class white guys would be walking around a place like that at night, and neither one of them were good. It also didn't help for Stacie to say to us as we left, "Be careful out there." Apparently, she knew better than to go out there at night. She doesn't let her kids go out in the day!
Maybe we should have gone to visit them in the daytime. But, we went when we could. I was scared when I was out there, but I was able to get into my truck and drive back to my safe, middle class neighborhood.
Do you think families like this are any less fearful living there than I was? Do you think if they had the means that they wouldn't move in a heartbeat? Do you think having their own beds with linen, knowing that someone cared enough to get it too them, might provide them some small bit of justice in the midst of the injustice they have no choice but to live in?
Well, we stopped to check the pulse of the bloody guy on the side of the road. There is a heartbeat. Wonder what we should do next?
I talked to one of my friends who grew up in a hood like this one and he said there are only two reasons why two middle class white guys would be walking around a place like that at night, and neither one of them were good. It also didn't help for Stacie to say to us as we left, "Be careful out there." Apparently, she knew better than to go out there at night. She doesn't let her kids go out in the day!
Maybe we should have gone to visit them in the daytime. But, we went when we could. I was scared when I was out there, but I was able to get into my truck and drive back to my safe, middle class neighborhood.
Do you think families like this are any less fearful living there than I was? Do you think if they had the means that they wouldn't move in a heartbeat? Do you think having their own beds with linen, knowing that someone cared enough to get it too them, might provide them some small bit of justice in the midst of the injustice they have no choice but to live in?
Well, we stopped to check the pulse of the bloody guy on the side of the road. There is a heartbeat. Wonder what we should do next?
Stacie and her children (their names all start with a J, but I can't remember them).
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