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.
I used to live in North Hollywood. If you play "word association" with "North Hollywood" the word you associate with it is "Shootout." There's ample Youtubage to be had; suffice it to say that the North Hollywood shootout is the reason LAPD now carries Glocks AND Mossbergs AND M4 carbines and was the principal impetus for SWAT teams all over the US started deploying the FN P90. I lost a neighbor to a drive-by and another to a gunfight within the house. The neighborhood was then and is now being contested between the Zetas and the Armenians. That does not mean that young mothers didn't push their strollers down my street, and it does not mean the ice cream trucks did not visit. Here's the thing: If this were normal it wouldn't shock you. The mere fact that this has left you absolutely gobsmacked should be the thing that gives you faith in humanity. It isn't normal. If it were, you wouldn't sit there with your outlook shattered, you'd pour one out and clean your AK. If you want to see "normalization of violence" read some of the personal histories of the Argentine Crisis that the Preppers hold so dear to their bosom. Their economy failed, violence was rampant, and personal, day-to-day decisions were choices like "do I bring the Glock or the AR-15 to work?" You're also seeking rationality in criminal behavior. You will not find it. As someone who spent a year and a half as the conduit for a guy in federal prison, "crime" is the domain of passion, not the domain of rationality. One does not mug the shit out of someone because they are a professional mugger. One mugs the shit out of someone because they are desperate, afraid, hateful and completely out of options. Keep in mind there's also an awful lot of illicit drug use associated with street crime and expecting Carl Sagan to be rational while hopped up on meth is expecting too much. Finally, stop looking for socioeconomic roots. Criminals aren't "they" they're "we." Your "Great White Hope" approach to all this is making things worse, not better - you really want this to be about "your people" somehow upsetting "the natural order" of "their people" so that you can couch it in sociological terms you can understand. Stop it. Criminality, unless widespread and socially accepted, is deviation, not normality. It comes from anywhere and is birthed into existence by happenstance and misfortune. Shall I overshare a bit? Here's one of my sister's childhood friends. They were in Brownies together. Used to hang out and smoke at the Overpass. Ran in the same circle. http://www.cowtowninfo.com/personals/f092/f09-208.htm Wanna know what she'd doing on Cowtown? Just google "Melissa French castration." Now before you feel too sorry for Don Hamilton, know that he totally earned it, that he managed to chase off a couple punks with AK-47s by grabbing a goddamn SAMURAI SWORD off the mantle and chasing them out of the house, and then read what he did to one of my childhood friends: http://santa-fe.vlex.com/vid/defendant-offers-version-man-ki... And before you feel too sorry for Jonathan Dick, know that he smothered his own infant son and put his wife in the hospital for a week he beat her so badly. I grew up with all these people. Jonathan lived two houses up the street. Knew him from Kindergarten. Don Hamilton I used to work on cars with. Melissa French? She was hot. We flirted all the time at parties. And two of them are dead and one of them is 18-to-life at Grants Correctional (Don Hamilton is out - he mistrialed because he managed to intimidate his co-defendants enough that they refused to testify. One of them strangled himself with his shoelaces). Shit - my sister's ex-boyfriend showed up beheaded in a ditch outside of Amarillo because he thought he could compete with the Cali cartel in a town with 10,000 people in it. But my sister is an architect and I'm sitting here typing about why you shouldn't lose faith in humanity. Evil walks the earth, but it generally walks in shadow. If this didn't shock you, it would mean it had you in its grip. And the fact that you can walk out the door, find a Starbuck's, pay $4 and sit and listen to Smooth Jazz while couples with strollers discuss diaper cream should tell you that light outnumbers darkness. Your friend will heal. He will be a different person. So will you. But your brush with the shadows does not mean you dwell in them.
no apologies needed -- it's disheartening when we hear of seemingly senseless tragic acts of inhumanity -- and even more disheartening when these events touch us personally. Worst of all is our feelings of powerlessness (both here and everywhere in the world where violence takes hold.). I think your essay, trying to understand, is one way of fighting back against despair.
I am sorry to hear about your friend. Living in the area, I know of others that have been victims of violence in Detroit. However, none of these people have been so close. I have heard people argue that "Detroit isn't as dangerous as people think." But, my personal experience is that it is dangerous enough not to ignore. IMO this is the crux of the problem. There are plenty of Detroiters that are full of love and community. However, there is a large portion of urban black culture in the US that is broken. Many have grown in a culture that preaches materialism, violence, and sexism, while devaluing community, family, and pacifism. It emboldens and validates, but also damns them to there current situation. IMO it is fueled by disenfranchisement in the US as a whole, but also from a vicious cycle that has taken root in the community itself. The violence cannot be justified. But I don't think it can't be stopped either. IMO it can only be slowly undone by broad and purposeful efforts by all.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.
I'm sorry to hear about your friend and I hope his prognoses gets better. lil is right, there is no need to apologize, while it may be depressing it is something that needs to be discussed. You raise some valid questions. As you know, my sister and her family live in Detroit and while they are set on being a part of the renaissance of the city, it does worry me. That said, I look forward to a hubski-holiday meet up in the "D".
It's not just Detroit, though. Here in Maynooth, a piddly town in the east of Ireland near Dublin, I remember reading in the newspaper about a guy who was walking home late at night when three or four guys jumped over a wall and started beating the crap out of him, but they didn't take his wallet or his iphone.