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San Francisco: Tradgedy and Death
Aug. 30th, 2006 04:50 pmThere’s lots of death in San Francisco these days and I’m not talking about the Afghani-American-who’s-arranged-marriage-caused-him-to-go-crazy-ala-"Deathrace 2000"*. Though don’t get me wrong, that’s pretty bad too.
Did people even notice the five people shot in one night in Bayview a few days ago? I saw the article in the paper. But I admit it was too depressing to read closely. Murders are way up this year all over the Bay Area, but, as per usual, they are confined mostly to the areas populated by poor Blacks and Latinos.
It’s what makes it so hard to talk about "The City" and not be full of shit. Large parts of it is rich by any standards you want to use. Even though it’s a city, many areas are nearly as safe as any gated community. But then there’s Bayview/HP, One side of Potrero Hill, a few parts of the Mission. Everyone knows it but those areas are either ignored by people who don’t live there or called upon to justify some political argument of another.
I know that’s hardly a new statement, don’t worry. But it does pain me that, even as I think of myself as political and well-informed, I forget it sometimes too. I saw that five people murdered in the Bayview headline and, while it made me sad, I went about my day thinking about it in only abstract terms of race, class, drugs and ghettos.
When I went to work today, I called in my orders as usual. When I called a certain cheese distributor, everyone seemed agitated in a way I couldn’t name. I was treated everything like normal, but the reactions I was getting weren’t. They were fuzzy, confused, distracted…
It turns out that one of the folks murdered that night was a woman I’ve talked to almost every week for the last decade. I’m not trying to claim a deeper connection than we had. She was the sweet voice on the phone. We’d joke about the boss, nasty cheese and occasionally our weekend plans. We never met, and that’s not really unusual, though we joked about that too.
I don’t know the details and folks weren’t in a state where I could ask. Seems like a wrong place/wrong time thing which is what we politely say when it’s really more accurately wrong class/wrong color.
A real life friend has an LJ where pretty much every Potrero Hill death gets recognized. The victims are always someone’s parent/sibling/child who has a connection to her workplace. I don’t claim to know what it would feel like to live, non-slumming, in one of those neighborhoods. But sometimes I would think it must feel like those folks (multi-racial and mutli-class from the pics I saw) over on California Street yesterday. Potentially lethal craziness coming from nowhere and back again as you try to let it pass you by.
But really, I don’t know shit about it. Except that if these murders were evenly dispersed demographically through the population it would be seen as an epidemic.
*I would have linked to this part of SF Gate which reads "The driver suspected in Tuesday's SF rampage is Omeed Aziz Popal. Family members say Popal has a history of mental illness and that his recent arranged marriage in his native Afghanistan may have triggered the deadly spree". but they change that page daily.
Did people even notice the five people shot in one night in Bayview a few days ago? I saw the article in the paper. But I admit it was too depressing to read closely. Murders are way up this year all over the Bay Area, but, as per usual, they are confined mostly to the areas populated by poor Blacks and Latinos.
It’s what makes it so hard to talk about "The City" and not be full of shit. Large parts of it is rich by any standards you want to use. Even though it’s a city, many areas are nearly as safe as any gated community. But then there’s Bayview/HP, One side of Potrero Hill, a few parts of the Mission. Everyone knows it but those areas are either ignored by people who don’t live there or called upon to justify some political argument of another.
I know that’s hardly a new statement, don’t worry. But it does pain me that, even as I think of myself as political and well-informed, I forget it sometimes too. I saw that five people murdered in the Bayview headline and, while it made me sad, I went about my day thinking about it in only abstract terms of race, class, drugs and ghettos.
When I went to work today, I called in my orders as usual. When I called a certain cheese distributor, everyone seemed agitated in a way I couldn’t name. I was treated everything like normal, but the reactions I was getting weren’t. They were fuzzy, confused, distracted…
It turns out that one of the folks murdered that night was a woman I’ve talked to almost every week for the last decade. I’m not trying to claim a deeper connection than we had. She was the sweet voice on the phone. We’d joke about the boss, nasty cheese and occasionally our weekend plans. We never met, and that’s not really unusual, though we joked about that too.
I don’t know the details and folks weren’t in a state where I could ask. Seems like a wrong place/wrong time thing which is what we politely say when it’s really more accurately wrong class/wrong color.
A real life friend has an LJ where pretty much every Potrero Hill death gets recognized. The victims are always someone’s parent/sibling/child who has a connection to her workplace. I don’t claim to know what it would feel like to live, non-slumming, in one of those neighborhoods. But sometimes I would think it must feel like those folks (multi-racial and mutli-class from the pics I saw) over on California Street yesterday. Potentially lethal craziness coming from nowhere and back again as you try to let it pass you by.
But really, I don’t know shit about it. Except that if these murders were evenly dispersed demographically through the population it would be seen as an epidemic.
*I would have linked to this part of SF Gate which reads "The driver suspected in Tuesday's SF rampage is Omeed Aziz Popal. Family members say Popal has a history of mental illness and that his recent arranged marriage in his native Afghanistan may have triggered the deadly spree". but they change that page daily.
