I just finished watching Woody Allen's Manhattan; the last line of the film is "You've got to have a little faith in people". Its an interesting intersection with the day I've had. Right now faith in people is in short supply for me.
I woke this morning to news that my friend, a friend I've known since I was 10 years old, was robbed and beaten nearly to death last night. Currently, he's in the hospital in a medically induced coma to reduce seizures, with a skull fracture, brain swelling and, likely, brain damage. How do we keep faith in people in a world where this happens every day? Its cliche to say, but most days we don't think about violence until it affects us personally.
Admittedly, I have chosen to live in a dangerous place, so shame on me for complaining. But what happens to a person that makes them such a sociopath that robbing someone isn't enough? Just last week, almost in a foreshadowing of this event, a friend of a friend was robbed in a nearby neighborhood to the current incident in which the assailant pistol whipped her with such force that she required a trip to the ER to get a large sliver of the gun handle removed from her face, and she is now suffering mild short term memory loss. These acts of violence make it incredibly difficult to maintain even a modicum of faith in humanity.
Is it a problem of gentrification? Do we, as well to do newcomers, deserve this type of treatment for encroaching on the dystopia that is Detroit, a city that on the surface appears to be in a remarkable rebound from the grand fall from grace its been experiencing for half a century? Are we rather like the Europeans displacing the aboriginals from their native land? It can't just be opportunism. Opportunism dictates that robbery is sufficient, and I can rationalize the poor stealing from the rich. I may not like it, but it isn't a hard thing to understand.
What is difficult to understand is the hatred, the violence. The logic of beating a woman with a pistol or kicking a man's head in after a robbery has already taken place is incomprehensible. A simple armed robbery would land a light jail sentence, and probably wouldn't even be investigated by the police in this God forsaken shithole. But attempted murder? We're talking 20 year jail sentence with serious police involvement. It just doesn't add up. Hate and resentment are the only things that can motivate such crimes.
Can we blame them? Would I hate if I were raised like these criminals must have been? I can only assume that each of these individuals grew up dirt poor, probably abused and neglected, with no love to speak of. Now all of a sudden we move into their space--because we think the ghetto is some interesting curiosity--and set up vegan restaurants, micro breweries and boutique shops. Their prison is our playground. Resentment is understandable, but there is no way to justify this kind of violence. I'm angry right now, angry for my friend and angry for my home. I have no other outlet, so I figured get it on paper. Apologies for being so depressing.