From The Guardian UK: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/05/stop-fearing-poor-neighborhoods-new-york
Misplaced fear of low income communities only makes things worse, perpetuating the problems and keeping resources away
Chris Arnade
theguardian.com, Wednesday 5 February 2014
It was 1am when I was asked to go into a stranger’s apartment in a building the police had identified as a gang stronghold. The gentleman, who I had met half an hour before at the corner bodega, wanted to show me something. He wouldn’t say what. I climbed the dark stairwell, walked down the hallway, made alive by flickering fluorescent lights, and into his apartment.
He took me into his living room and shined a flashlight on the wall, highlighting a painting. “You’re an artist, what do you think? I did it a few years ago.” We spent the next half hour in his kitchen, sipping beers and talking art.
A question I hear often from those who view my photographs highlighting addiction in the Hunts Point section of the Bronx is, “How do you stay safe? Have you been attacked? Please be careful.” It’s well intentioned, but it also displays a fundamental misunderstanding of the neighborhoods I work in.
Hunts Point by many metrics is awful. It’s the precinct in New York with one of the highest levels of violent crime per capita. It’s one of the poorest congressional districts in the United States. The average annual family income is $16,000.
In my three years working in the neighborhood, often until 3am, I have never been attacked or hurt. I have been treated no differently than I have been in wealthy neighborhoods.
To walk into a neighborhood, to meet a new person, and be afraid based on looks alone, is presumptuous and insulting: it’s personal racial profiling. It happens all the time to the residence of poor neighborhoods who are often viewed as “thugs” by outsiders and, more sadly, the police.
Personal racial profiling happens both ways, of course, to the benefit of my safety. I have been told I am a typecast for a New York police detective: tall, white, puffy, and with a forward personality. When I get called “Officer” I respond with a big smile and say, “that’s racial profiling. I don’t presume you are a drug dealer just cause you’re black.” That always gets a laugh, and understanding. Still, being white, I win the expectation game. A sad reality.
Fear of safety in poor neighborhoods also comes from a misunderstanding of statistics. Consider the data: in Hunts Point in 2012 there were eight murders, 12 rapes, 516 felony assaults (pdf). This is out of a population of 52,000. Roughly 1% of the population suffered a violent offense, or one in a hundred.
In wealthy neighborhoods, like where I live, those numbers are much smaller, with the rates 10 to 30 times as low, on the order of one in a thousand to one in three thousand.
Let’s look at it the reverse way: make the simple assumption that for each victim, there is a different assailant who is part of that neighborhood. Where I live roughly 99.7% of the people are playing by the rules. In Hunts Point it is still something like 97% of the people. The overwhelming majority are still decent folks looking out for each other.
Continue reading at: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/05/stop-fearing-poor-neighborhoods-new-york
