Chatting with another resident, he mentioned that he used to have certain beliefs or ideas about poverty, crime and such but then he moved here. It is one thing to see people from the comfort of your car as you drive back to your homogeneous neighborhood, pass people of different social classes in those brief encounters, or hear about situations on TV or read about it from journalists, it is another when you have to live with the diversity of people and ideas and not on your own terms.
Poverty takes on a whole different dimension when you live next to or on the same block or around as people you would describe as poor. Your encounters with the homeless are not in a soup kitchen where you are volunteering or a fund raiser. Your relations with people who struggle financially are deeper because they are your neighbors. In some strange way you may be forced to relate to them as equals. Appreciate them, be annoyed by them, and they with you, as equals. No distant pity here. And I think equality is a good thing.
Prostitution seems to be a victimless crime to some people but when it is in your back alley it really isn’t. I have heard, mainly when listening to Libertarians, that recreational drugs should be legalized and then we wouldn’t have the crime. Well I’ve never believed that, but does one keep that kind of thinking when your neighbor’s car is broken into by a crackhead? Would a legal crackhead not break into cars? Yes, alcohol is legal and strangely we’re not so fond of all the liquor stores in the neighborhood.
Now I’m debating to touch race. After deleting and retyping, and deleting and retyping, I’ll write this… There is a diverse set of people in this neighborhood. You have middle class blacks, poor blacks, folks directly from parts of Africa or the Caribbean, Anglos from down under, and, but not limited to Protestant Koreans from G-d knows where.
But back to my point. Has living here changed your point of view on certain issues?