As I sit in Wisconsin on my last night, I realize that we belong in Seattle. Ok, I really miss friends and family here, but the muggy weather, flat landscape, and ghetto are not things that I miss. I can deal with the weather and landscape, but the poverty and crime issues in Milwaukee really have gotten to me.
Last night Brian and I drove through our old neighborhood and realized what a shit hole we lived in. Not our condo (because that puts our current home to shame), but the area surrounding our condo is not just dumpy, but dangerous! I think it regestered at the time that it was dangerous, but I don't think that it really occured to me that I, Brian and/or Nora could have really been hurt there. Milwaukee is again on its way to having a 150 murder count this year. Murders in Seattle are VERY big news and are talked about for weeks. The evening news in Milwaukee always starts out with the run down of the recent murders as if it was a simple car accident or a thunder storm.
Perspective is everything. What's 150 murders in a year, right? That's 1,500 people in 10 years, 15,000 people in 100 years. How can this be happening? What can be so wrong that it will make you feel better (or you think it will) if you take another human life? It is outside my ability to think about or understand where you must be in your life to see this as a possibility or a necessity.
Last night Brian and I drove through our old neighborhood and realized what a shit hole we lived in. Not our condo (because that puts our current home to shame), but the area surrounding our condo is not just dumpy, but dangerous! I think it regestered at the time that it was dangerous, but I don't think that it really occured to me that I, Brian and/or Nora could have really been hurt there. Milwaukee is again on its way to having a 150 murder count this year. Murders in Seattle are VERY big news and are talked about for weeks. The evening news in Milwaukee always starts out with the run down of the recent murders as if it was a simple car accident or a thunder storm.
Perspective is everything. What's 150 murders in a year, right? That's 1,500 people in 10 years, 15,000 people in 100 years. How can this be happening? What can be so wrong that it will make you feel better (or you think it will) if you take another human life? It is outside my ability to think about or understand where you must be in your life to see this as a possibility or a necessity.
posted by April at 9:12 PM
4 Comments:
That's kind of how we felt after we moved out of California. The first week's worth of news with murders, people leaving babies, etc was about more than I could stand!!
and then I sit and wonder..am I just adding to the problem by not sticking around and being part of the solution. Gentrification, cooperate rat race, white suburbia...have I just become one of the numbers that create the awful statistics dragging American racial equality into a whole?
have I sold out?
Amy, you make me think too much. I want to believe that I am doing what is best for Nora. Maybe I am making things worse for her. I apprecitate that we now live in a very diverse place where when walking down the street I hear many different languages being spoken. I know that is a much different kind of diversity than in Milwaukee, but it is one with which I am much more comfortable
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