walk a mile in my shoes
Well, later that night... The people around the corner brought out the big guns again - somehow thinking the police wouldn't be around? The neighbourhood fireworks went on until midnight. Although Yee Olde City didn't have a lot of these superfireworks, things went on until all hours. That is one good thing about this place - people actually go to bed, generally speaking. (Also, the dogs are smaller here).
But, when I went out at 5: am, the whole area around their place was roped off, and police cars were all around, flashing their own kind of light show. It was a crime scene. Someone probably died - which we'll hear about in the news. Also, coming from their place was a continuous angry shouting by a male. That might have been A-hole Guy, who is the LL, except that he might have been in a car leaving his own house. Anyway - stuff goin' on.
I have said before, as I have been here, with my dog, out 3-4x/day, including anywhere between 2-5:am every night, and being so delightfully moral, for the past 7 years, the crime rate in this area has clearly gone down. A-hole Guy keeps bringing in new asshole tenants, who start new trouble, and then I win out and they disappear. New idiots also come in constantly in the neighbourhood, so mine has been an ongoing 'mission' - although, it isn't so much a mission as me minding my own business and setting a good example. And yelling about once a year.
Well, then come these new tenants, who are around the corner, but who also associate w/ some folks in the house on the opposite side of me. As usual, they came in, wary of my dog, then became more bold when they saw he was so nice or well managed. Then someone, probably one of them or their associates, emptied my recycling bin and scattered my stuff from here to on top of the car of the guy downstairs.
What happened when I called the cops was a lot of denial and evasion - with the officer even hanging up on me. Then, my LL did not respond to my call for security cameras. It is a catch-22, your complaints aren't real unless you have pics, and your LL won't get cameras because the police rejected your police. She happens to know the police. So, I am sure they had a nice little aggravation party over me. Which is actually the beginning of elitism. And nothing was ever done.
Because nothing was done, the thieves were emboldened. They stole a TV from a guy next-door. And the evidence points to it being one of them, or their affiliates in that house. After that went swimmingly, there were the gunshots from between that house and this one, as I was out with dog, 3:am. That's what is done to warn people not to mess around, right? It's like, I'm doing nothign to bother them, and BECAUSE I am nice, BECAUSE they are getting away with things, these cowards press on.
As I was out with dog, walking on the sidewalk, the little girls who apparently are daughters of the main-issue people, and who were friendly until they were coaxed away from talking to me - the white guy - as has happened before - well, they basically tried to run us off the sidewalk with their bikes. Then came a bunch of other kids on bikes and even on a motorbike, asserting that they own the sidewalk. Why did this happen? Via FB, as usual, they were reacting to my call to an early guy who almost hit us - to use the street! I am like a scab that must be picked. If I ask someone to not use the sidewalk, then everyone starts using the sidewalk. It is a continuing method: to contradict the white guy, because of whatever - my theoretical white privilege. Actually, for urban people, any excuse is what they will use. The main thing is to mess with people, especially the ones that mind their own business. So, this has been the resistance that my 'mission' constantly had to overcome - with grace and sense and patience.
Next, come the superfireworks. Just pushing the limits and pushing the limits. What happens? It ends, somehow, in someone dying. Again. And so, A-hole Guy will throw them out, and new tenants will come in and start the same pathos all over again. And I, with CFS, will again have to put up with more shit. This is what happens. If you keep giving some people what they are after, things do not end well. Dysfunctional people. As well as sociopaths, con-artists, envious people, resentful people, animals and sworn enemies. And many children. And corporations. Because they all act along single-factor motivators, yes like hate or 'anti-racism', instead of working by a number of factors. True multifactoral True intersectional.
But, I must say that, though I have been making an example here of the latest trouble-makers, I found them, relatively speaking, much less personally bothersome than other newcomers in the past. They did not move in with hate-filled eyes and gossip directed at me. Their hatred of my dog was not so explicit. They mainly set off their fireworks away from here, instead of deliberately standing next to this house and throwing firecrackers AT it. They didn't seem to do a lot of 'defiant' trespassing. Their car music was sometimes crazy loud, but if it is not meant as an attack, and if it is not late late at night, I don't normally care. For these reasons, I assumed they were somewhat mature and libertarian, in the good sense. And it is possible that, by now, A-hole Guy didn't grill them as much to hate me this time. A-hole Guy has been a little better in a couple of other ways, as well.
I will mention, though, that, about a week ago, I was plainly sitting on my porch w/ dog, and the two little girls just blithely started walking through our yard, right towards us. That's what happened when people conclude you are no longer a threat - you become invisible to them - (which is why so many people in such hoods strive to look bad-ass). Some little male friends had already taunted my dog from afar, so my dog, of course, ran towards these little girl trespassers. And they screamed and laughed and ran away. The they started trespassing from the OPPOSITE direction - not learning that this should NOT be their normal way to walk. So, my dog runs towards them again, and they ran screaming and laughing. What's my dog going to do but think it's a game and try to have fun? he even gave out a little bark - and my dog has NEVER barked outside before! It ends with the two girls wanting to 'round the corner, properly on the sidewalk. But they were too troubled by my calm dog to try it. I asked them to stay off the lawn, because it makes the dog nervous, and, "he can even smell if you have been there!" But I was still invisible to them, and they just stood there. So, I just went inside with my dog, and they 'rounded the corner.
Anyway, whatever means I practice, I am forever settling things down around here, and things get a little better, a little worse, and a little better. The along comes this cab-driver, who is completely unfamiliar with me or this neighbourhood, and he proceeds to pull the same crap against me as is so common elsewhere in this city. That is, plainly speaking, that many blacks feel it is OK to mess with whites, and many whites let this happen. Because of the whole white guilt thing, which I do not have, and should not have. But more on that later. The point is that, no matter now nice it gets around here - and there has been a lot of refurbishing going on lately, as well as a lot less crap - outsiders keep washing in like the crud of an oil slick, and it isn't worth my time and health to keep dealing with it. I cannot write in an area where there can be so much stress. Gotta get outta here. Places like this do not save themselves, because no one is allowed to think or act outside of the box. Though most residents vote Democrat, this society is the ultimate in conservatism. Which is something most Democrats are incapable of understanding.
Anti-progressivism. Anti-gay. Anti-woman. Anti-white / anti-BLACK. Anti-environment. Anti-imagination. Anti-peace and quiet. So petty-competitive that people are dying over shoes, words, fireworks. So many buy into the messaging, and do not see the divide-and conquer which is playing them - coming from capitalism, television, music, politicians, hate-mongers, billionaires, China - and even pollution - in addition to racism. The troublemakers are so driven to hate that they themselves have become functions of the same racism they mean to destroy.