232 and counting

Six more people were murdered in Philadelphia this weekend. It seems like a whole lot of senseless violence is going on, and the media is trying to figure out which end is rhyme and which is reason of it all while the police scramble to come up with a new plan and all of us city dwellers just keep looking over our shoulders and try to stay out of the hot spots.

After the concert last week, Dave and I drove through the little Asian pocket of South Philly and I commented on how many small children and babies were outside on front steps and street corners (at 11 o'clock at night, mind you). I wasn't even totally comfortable driving across Ritner Street for a few blocks, and here were these mothers, allowing their kids to run rampant in a crappy section of town. And it has nothing to do with Asians, everyone does it. Doesn't matter where you are from or what color your skin is in this town, it seems like no one puts their kids to bed ever around here. Dave said something to the effect that this is these people's lives and that's what they know and how they do things, and they probably aren't thinking of gunshots and stab wounds and drug deals gone bad and turf wars. Are there still turf wars? They seem to have gone the way of choreographed fighting and singing about kissing Maria and when you're a Jet you're a Jet stuff. Whatever. Get your babies in the house. Especially those 18-24 year-old babies. They seem to be the ones causing the problems for the rest of us.

This morning on the way to work we talked about the fact that these murders just aren't getting any better. In my slightly-educated and highly-experienced socio-economical opinion, I attribute it to the fact that housing here sucks and our utility rates are astronomical and there is nothing to do unless you have $100 to drop on museums or a game or the movies or whatever and no one has $100 to drop on anything. No matter what you do, it's going to cost. There aren't too many free or low cost things to do here. I know people who live without plumbing and who can't use their upstairs because there is literally no roof or they can't go in their kitchen because there is a hole all the way to their basement and there just isn't anywhere else for them to go. The City doesn't have any more subsidized housing available, and the wait list is so long that a homeless pregnant woman probably won't be eligible for an apartment by the time her name is at the top of the list because that baby will be 18. Unless she just keeps having kids of course. Then she'll be fine. Back in the days when I was highly-educated and slightly-experienced and dedicated to the cause and innovative and creative and in grad school studying Criminal Justice and Urban Studies, I wrote a big long paper on Relative Deprivation and how it ties in with Gentrification and the time-space continuum and opportunities for crime and deviance and lack of constructive supervised activities and sub-cultures of violence and crime mapping and social disorganization and all this real good stuff that runs through my head every day if I'm not talking out loud to squash the voices in my brain.

Basically I wrote that if you feel like you aren't getting what you deserve you get really super angry and take it out on other people when your mom and the police aren't watching but your friends are and your brain tells you that violence is okay because you allow yourself to be wrapped up in the glamour and street mentality that you see on television and listen to on the radio and hear your peers talking about. Add to that the age of the children and young adults that are committing these violent acts and their low levels of maturity and high levels of impulsivity due to poor parenting, substance use and abuse, and "faulty" brain wiring from a lack of nurture, nutrition, and education and you have a big mess. I wish I could find the disc that holds that paper. And a piece of old technology that would allow me to open that document and email it to my new space-aged computer that I don't really know how to use so I can read it and relate it all to what is going on these days. If nothing else, I would feel super intelligent and socially-minded again. I think that part of my brain has rotted.
People ask why I still live here. I've written before that my family isn't in the demographic that should be worried. My neighborhood is nice enough and my office and my social life are both in very safe areas. When I'm in the field for work, I generally feel okay, and the sites that I visit are usually right along a bus line or easily accessible from a train. It's mostly all good. On top of all that, I like it here because Dave and I are considered rich kids in this town, where the per capita income is something like $17,000. That's about how much we pay for our daycare and student loans every year. Our daughter Sallie Mae is really high maintenance and expensive. Have you met her? She hangs all over our walls and infiltrates our brains and drains our bank account.

I went to Dave's baseball game out in the middle of Crap Jersey (in a town where the per capita income is $32,000 btw) yesterday. It is a beautiful park with an amazing playground and fantastic ball fields and a wooded trail and a lake with ducks and geese and a grassy knoll with bunnies and squirrels and bumblebees and robins. The two or three times I've gone there I've taken Jake to the playground and I'm completely creeped out because no one else is there. Playgrounds in the city have tons of moms and a million kids and sometimes police officers and groundskeepers. I feel safe and surrounded and happy to let Jake run amok. Playgrounds in the suburbs are desolate and I feel like there is an old man hiding somewhere with his pants around his ankles. You won't catch me in those woods either, where I'm sure that some maniac who slipped through the suburban mental health system because there are so very few resources out there has broken out of his mother's basement (or killed her to get out of the house) is lurking, just waiting to put me in a pit and throw lotion and baskets at me and feed me small pieces of meat that I later find out was Jake. Cause it happens all the time, right?

I'm staying right here where there are 11,233.6 very nosey people who can't keep their eyes off me and my business per square mile, thank you. I need a lot of people looking out for me to feel safe. In the town where the ballpark is there are only 1,844.3 people per square mile. And apparently they all stay in their houses and don't give a damn about me and my brat.

Which is strange, because we are kinda the center of the world and all.