(no subject)

Do you feel safe in your neighborhood? I imagine most people do. What about in the rest of your town? Why or why not? Where do you live? Are the people there, demographically speaking, basically like you? Are there places you fear to go?

I ask because I was sitting on a bench in Harvey (bordering Dixmoor) on Monday, busily scribbling hiragana into a workbook, when I was approached by a local, 'Killer' Payne, who talked to me for a while. At the end of our conversation, he got me to come with him a block or so east where I'd be in sight of people waiting at a bus stop. Where I'd be safer.

I had never felt unsafe there. It was a street with vehicle traffic, and I was sitting outside a bank with security guards and police inside of it. The neighborhood itself was, I guess, a pretty bad area as far as such things go. I'm not always very good at telling that. But there were bars on windows and doors. There was, as I said, a very visible police presence in the banks, who didn't hesitate to approach me and ask what I was there for. (There were signs up in the bank entryways saying no hoods, hats, or sunglasses were allowed.) There were a few abandoned storefronts, and the ones that were open looked a little run down.

Culturally, I stuck out like a sore thumb. I was wearing my aussie expedition hat and a black longcoat, and I was carrying a Led Zeppelin embroidered messenger bag. I was the only white person I saw for the entire mile and a half walk to the bank. I was out of place enough that Payne and other locals were trying to decide if I was a cop before he approached me, and when he found out I wasn't, appeared to fear for my safety to at least some degree.

But I was never nervous about being there. I looked up as people approached, nodded or said 'hi' if I got their attention, and just didn't bother anybody. I would have been perfectly content to sit and work on my book until my mother showed up. I'm not sure if that's bravery, ignorance, or stupidity. Or maybe it's just that, on the whole, I think people are basically good. And if I'm sitting in plain sight, in the light of day, on a public street with regular traffic, I think the odds of anything happening to me are pretty remote.

And I really wonder if this is an atypical response. I was in some extremely questionable areas of Detroit on my last trip there too. I did feel a bit nervous a couple times. They were times when I was in areas that seemed completely abandoned and deserted, and where I was by myself with no one driving or walking by my area. (Though I still got out of my car to take photos of things like the abandoned Fisher Body Plant, I elected not to go inside.) Admittedly, I felt a little nervous too in the abandoned Easttown theatre too, after my exploring companion told me that several people had been mugged at gunpoint in the area, but being with someone else made it an easy fear to overcome. I've talked to a number of people who've told me that they'd never go through those kinds of places in Detroit that I did. I've talked to locals both in Detroit (chatting about the neighborhood and aesthetics in front of a burned out shell of a house) and in Harvey (the aforementioned 'Killer' Payne). They basically seem like good people, and I think most people really are.

As well as how I'd love to know more about where you feel safe in your town or neighborhood and where you don't, I'd love to know if you would be nervous if you found yourself in downtown Harvey, Illinois, like I was, for three hours with nothing to do but wait for help to get your car back. If you would be nervous, what is it that would make you feel that way?

I don't know that I'll get many responses to this (if any); it's kind of a complex thought and discussion. But in case I do, and the answer is at all personal, I'll screen replies to this.

Thanks!