The D.C.-based blogging community has been quite upset over the shooting of Brian Beutler. I don't know Brian, but obviously my heart goes out to anyone who gets shot three times and has to have major surgery. I've been hanging with a couple of political bloggers here at Aspen who work out of D.C., and all of them sound absolutely terrified of crime in Washington. This has really shocked the hell out of me--I lived in D.C. in the early to late 90s, when crime was a lot worse. Given the subsequent drop-off, the idea that D.C. could feel like Murderland is mind-boggling to me.
I was just reading this entry from Ezra Klien where he notes that fully half of his friends have been mugged. That is just a shocking number to me. I got to thinking back on my days in the District, and I couldn't even think of more than three or four people who I knew that had been mugged. As I reflected more on it, I came to a very uncomfortable--if obvious conclusion--if you're a mugger in D.C., a young, white, bookish blogger probably looks like the perfect mark.
For most of my tenure in D.C., I was going to Howard University. This was before the advent of gentrification, and it was generally thought that Howard students, themselves, were easy marks. But me and most my friends knew that to be a simplification. It's true that if you walked through, say, Clifton Terrace star-gazing, if you're roaming the streets acting like it can't happen (as us ancient hip-hop heads say), you were very likely to get stuck. But as anyone whose spent some time in the city knows, if you moved through the streets with purpose, if you kept the ice-grill on and looked like you were all business, if you kept that sixth sense of yours buzzing, the chances of you actually falling prey were pretty low. I may have had one encounter my whole time in D.C. You may attribuite that to me being 6'4, but the same was true of virtually all of my friends because they tended to be, like me, kids who didn't have a thuggish bone in their bodies but were still intimately acquainted with, as Dre would say, the Strength of Street Knowledge.
In reading all of these blog postings about crime in the District, I am beginning to understand--to some extent--the fear that white folks must have of black crime, as something different than the fear that black folks have. I live in Harlem, still a relatively unsafe section of New York, but having lived in Harlems all my life, I acutally feel almost as safe there as I do here in Aspen. I know that violent crime most often happens in situations in which people know each other, or in situations in which someone looks like a target. I tend to not hang with criminals, and I do what I can to not make myself a target.
But how would I feel if I knew my skin color alone made me an easy mark for the most degenerate elements of a community? Heh, probably the exact same way I'd feel driving through the small towns of Texas. That's not entirely fair--random street crime is still more common than hate crime. What I'm driving at is this: For the first time in my life, I have some sense of what the white guy who is ignorant of all things about black people is thinking when he drives through certain parts of town and rolls up his window. Because his very whiteness makes him an easy mark, he has to fear things in a way that I never do.
UPDATE: This post is an attempt to see the world from another perspective, one radically different from the vantage point I developed living in black communities all my life. It excuses nothing and indicts nothing, mostly because that's the last thing we need when we're trying to initiate some dialouge. I hope folks who are reading this can see that, and can do a little more than simply use this as an oppurtunity to advance what they already think. That goes for the belief that urban black kids are, in general, monsters and the belief that people who subscribe to a lesser grade of that idea are talking from Mars. I'm not asking you to agree with me. But lets just try to look across the tracks a bit. The motivating belief of this blog is that those folks, over there, are human, and if we believe that, they'll give us that same consideration. That goes for race, ideology, religion, whatever...
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
"As I reflected more on it, I came to a very uncomfortable--if obvious conclusion--if your a mugger in D.C., a young, white, bookish blogger probably looks like the perfect mark."
Hm. Maybe. I tend to think not since people of color are still disproportionally the victims of crime (and def. more so than the young, white, bookish bloggers). It is an uncomfortable conclusion.
I lived in DC for three years after growing up Bombay, India and Desmoines, Iowa. I have a strong sense of what it means to be in a world that is alien and feels unsafe. My first few months in DC were embarrassingly limited to the Northwest.
As anyone with "Street Sense" will tell you, the key to building one is GETTING TO KNOW YOUR ENVIRONMENT. It is NOT as scary as it all seems. And if you are around different neighborhoods long enough, you learn to pick up on details that sets off your radar. It was only after frequenting neighborhoods on the green line more often, that I started to be comfortable in them. And this basic comfort is key to gaining "sixth sense", to understanding what the real dangers are, instead of being scared of everything.
Your honesty here is admirable. That it took you until 2008 to realize this is not.
Now, in light of your new realization, perhaps it's time to revisit your earlier post No More Complaints About How Black Kids Act in Public Please.
I think you've framed an excellent picture of why the next black guy that mugs a white guy in DC or Harlem should be charged to fullest extent of local Hate Crime laws above and beyond whatever pedestrian assualt laws exist. Put some statistics behind your argument and a beaten and swollen photo of a the squirelly white guy and bam! the new Hate Crime du jour.
Sonia,
I basically agree with everything you said. The point about easy marks vs. actual stats, likely reflects the number of potential victims.
Michael,
I believe all violent crime should be prosecuted aggressively. I don't believe in hate crime laws--for anyone. To be clear, that goes for James Byrd and Reggie Denny.
I find this somewhat faulty. I grew up in DC and Montgomery County, spending most of my free time in Adams Morgan and Mt. Pleasant when I was in high school in the early 90s. I've lived in New York since college, mostly working long hours in Long Island City. And I've never been mugged, and almost no one I know ever has been. Sure, maybe we were obviously poor high school kids hanging around in '92, and any mugger worth their salt knew we didn't have shit.
But I've never felt the least bit of additional risk because I was white. Not when I was growing up and going to Anacostia. Not when I was working in Harlem until dawn. I think you go too far in claiming that white fear of black criminals is fully rational. Sure, I could be an exception, and so could the people I know. Maybe it has to do with growing up around it, as you said. But the experience of Ezra Klein and his friends simply doesn't match mine.
I don't think I'd totally agree with James' last paragraph...in D.C. at least, if you are talking about who perpetrates the overwhelming majority of violent crime, it's black people. It's just a fact, and whether you are white or black it is totally rational to be far more concerned about the group of young black dudes approaching you as you go down the street than a group of white ones.
Now, there is definitely a lot to be said for street sense and making sure you don't look like a victim as you go about your business. Of my acquaintances that have been mugged here (not that many, though) almost every one is the type of person that has relatively poor situational awareness or appears to be the type of person that would apologize to you if you intentionally stepped on their foot. No offense to Mr. Klein and his friends, but based on the young, white, bookish types I've seen around town, they do look like marks. Especially since so many live in trendy areas like U Street and Adams Morgan with loads of decently-paid professionals that live right next to lots of low-income young black teenagers who are allowed to roam the neighborhood at all hours of the night. To kids like this that are looking for some easy money or a cheap thrill, it's a target-rich environment.
I was at HU when gentrification really started taking off (freshman year: no white people. senior year: white people jogging with their dogs on campus) but I've had friends mugged by Slowe Hall, and known kids who were *shot* up by Drew. Yet we weren't afraid. The idea was: keep your head up, don't smile, pull out your cell and call a friend if necessary as you walk somewhere questionable.
I guess I agree with Sonia. The whites I saw walking from the Shaw-Howard Metro stop to their new homes around Georgia Ave had the I'm-about-business ice grill down pat, and it was rare to hear of anything happening to them.
I don't think the fear is justified, I think it's a poor excuse for not getting a better handle on your surroundings, and the people in them.
I was at HU when gentrification really started taking off (freshman year: no white people. senior year: white people jogging with their dogs on campus) but I've had friends mugged by Slowe Hall, and known kids who were *shot* up by Drew. Yet we weren't afraid. The idea was: keep your head up, don't smile, pull out your cell and call a friend if necessary as you walk somewhere questionable.
I guess I agree with Sonia. The whites I saw walking from the Shaw-Howard Metro stop to their new homes around Georgia Ave had the I'm-about-business ice grill down pat, and it was rare to hear of anything happening to them.
I don't think the fear is justified, I think it's a poor excuse for not getting a better handle on your surroundings, and the people in them.
Without commenting on whether my skin color makes me a mark, saying it's just a matter of being street smart is a little too cute. I grew up on the Upper West Side pre-gentrification; I've lived in West Philadelphia and on the South Side of Chicago (safest place I've ever lived); and I now live a few blocks from that shooting. I know what to look for and I'm aware of my surroundings, and luckily, I managed to foil a mugging six months ago because I'm street smart enough to have known something was wrong.
But I was also *lucky*. Lucky that a mugger picked me up on a busy and well lighted street that gave me somewhere to pause and wait for him to go away (presumably to mug someone else). Lucky that he was, even for a mugger, incredibly stupid. Most of the people I know who have been mugged here didn't get mugged because they were fiddling with their iPhone while drinking a beer; they were doing crazy, un-street smart stuff like walking from a cab to their front door.
Looking street smart isn't going to make it any less obvious that I am a) middle class, and therefore may have something to steal and b) a tall but pretty scrawny woman who all but the weakest man could easily beat up even without a weapon. A tough, focused look while walking down an empty street will tell them what--that I'm going to be *really, really snotty* when they take my wallet?
The other thing you may want to consider is that I was 33 before I had a crime successfully committed against me. I was a whole lot braver, and a whole lot more convinced of my street smarts, before I was robbed. Now I realize that it was probably just random--I didn't happen to run into a mugger. Blaming the victim is pretty common, because we don't want to believe it can happen to us, so it's much nicer to think that they must have brought it on themselves--we do this for almost everything, from layoffs to unemployment. But it's a mistake for lots of reasons. Obviously, people do get mugged when they do something very ill advised. But lots of people get mugged when they do everything right, and it's pretty annoying to be told that it *must* have been your fault, because if you'd known what you were doing it wouldn't have happened.
A friend of mine had a guy leap out of a dark doorway, hit her in the back of the head with a brick, and beat the crap out of her before leaving her unconscious on the street. I have a hard time believing that any of the people confidently proclaiming their street smarts really have some sort of spidey sense that would have permitted them to see someone hiding behind a closed door that looked just like every other closed door on a deserted street.
Megan's overall point is powerfully effective. In the end, it turns out I had enough street smarts to raise my kids in the Dallas burbs.
For what it is worth, my experience matches Ta-Nehisi--though I am white and only lived on the West side of Manhattan in the 90s.
However, I wonder about it--since crime is in fact rather rare, one's impression of this kind of thing can be rather distorted by experience. 1 mugging in a lifetime? The mugging of 1 friend?
I would want to know some real statistics on this sort of thing, but that would be really hard to do, no? A decrease of 10% chance of mugging if you have a mean look, or fast walk? Or, how fast were you walking when you were mugged, sir? Anyway, I would one could tease this sort of information out by finding out percent of victims who were drunk, on the phone, lost, white in black neighborhoods, or vice versa, etc.
Personally, I think blaming a shooting victim for failing to be street smart is morally equivalent to blaming a rape victim for wearing provocative clothing.
"But how would I feel if I knew my skin color alone made me an easy mark for the most degenerate elements of a community?...Because his very whiteness makes him an easy mark, he has to fear things in a way that I never do."
I'm trying to keep an open mind about this, but I remained unconvinced. You're not unconvincing here because you're wrong--young, white professionals gentrifying a neighborhood probably do look like easy marks to the young, poor blacks being displaced. But I'm failing to see the "a-ha" moment or why they should get my sympathy (or, at least, any more sympathy than I would grant any victim of street crime). What makes the fear of these young bookish whites so special? Do they deserve some special comfort because it sucks to be white in some neighborhoods in DC? How many neighborhoods does it suck to be black in?
Listen, I get what you're saying, that you're seeing things from a new perspective, and maybe the fall out from gentrification is my special soap box, or maybe being a black woman raised in and living again in the South means I live with the constant knowledge that my skin color and my vagina paint me as an easy mark for a lot of different people in a lot of different neighborhoods, but I find it difficult to work up any additional grief (again, aside from the ordinary grief one feels about street crime) because these victims are white.
For what it is worth, Megan, I at least wasn't implying that the victim is ever at fault in these cases. The point that I was making was that, even considering how prevalent violent crime was/is in D.C., it didn't mean that I was suspicious in general of black people in D.C. then, or in New York now. Yes, anything can happen, and of course, should it happen to me, my perspective might change.
But I also think that all of us overestimate the likelihood of rare events, because the nights when something bad happens are so much more memorable than those where nothing does, just like how people overestimate the likelihood of a plane crash. Unless someone is juking the stats, D.C. today can't possibly be as violent of a place as D.C. in '92 was. And even then, most of the time, nothing happened.
None of this is an excuse, of course, for D.C. not to get around to doing some actual police work.
Why do you have such sympathy for THIS victim when Brothers are shot for no reason at all ALL THE TIME.
I'm sorry, but I've seen way too many stories of Brothers and Sisters being killed, ' for mistaken identity', or ' they were shooting at someone else and this person just happened to be there', or, if it's a cop ' they were shot in the back resisting arrest'.
Call me cold, but I'm not feeling the whining about this White guy being shot. He's another crime statistic in DC, and that's about it.
Call me when folks write about the next 5 little kids who get shot on the playground, or going to the store, or just trying to get icecream.
rikyrah:
You're cold. Way to alienate people to your cause.
Brian Beutler is being written about here because he is a close friend of people Mr. Coates is with at the festival. Not because he's some whiny white guy demanding attention.
It's very interesting that a strain of comments here see me as "whining" or devoting too much attention to a white victim of a crime. This entire blog is almost exclusively devoted to the problems of black folks--those victimized by criminals and otherwise. Scroll down and you'll see a very long post on a buddy of mine who was murdered by people charged with protecting him. In that context, why is it wrong to look out at other worlds? It's not like we don't talk about violent crime as it relates to black folks here. I'm not quite getting the beef...
KevDog wrote,
"Personally, I think blaming a shooting victim for failing to be street smart is morally equivalent to blaming a rape victim for wearing provocative clothing."
I've thought about that particular puzzle quite a bit.
There is a kind of paradox here. Clearly, the fact that a victim took unnecessary chances can never be an exonerating factor for the person who took advantage of the situation. That is just common sense. "Sir, you knew you should never have raped/assaulted/robbed anyone, regardless of the circumstances."
Consider the case of a person, of either gender and any race, who flaunts obviously expensive jewelry when walking through city streets, making no attempt to hide the valuable item. That would be foolhardy in any part of the world.
It is one thing to work on a dairy farm, quite another to wave a red flag while alone with a bull in a paddock.
I've concluded that there can logically exist fault on both sides. The primary fault is criminal in every sense, while the secondary fault is a violation of proper self-care. Neither person's fault exonerates the other from responsibility.
All the above naturally applies to anyone of any skin hue.
But then what of, say, someone's determination not to be intimidated, whether by majority racism or by criminal behavior?
In that case, because the potential victim realizes there is a risk involved, and voluntarily accepts that risk, I can only admire that person's strength and determination.
Personally, as a young white woman who lives in a relatively stable neighborhood, but whose subway trips most days go through some uncertain areas, I've always found my gender to be more of a red flag than my race. It's something I internalized very young, and was only made more conscious of after I was mugged, and a friend of mine was sexually assaulted -- a whole set of decisions and concerns that most men just don't have, walking around at night. Even though I was raised in a city, I'm much more likely to suggest a cab than one of my male friends, or to alter my route based on avoiding places where I might run into strange men. And it's not even necessarily a calculated assessment I make, but rather an instinctive anxiety, a tenseness of my shoulders and a tendency to look around. Maybe this post could also be called "Male Crime."
I live in Harlem, am white, and am aware that the color of my skin does make me stand out a bit. I am also aware that some common perceptions about that makes me either a better target or the low-hanging fruit for bad people. But I generally don't carry that around with me all the time. If it late and I'm going to intersect paths with a group of rowdy kids - it gives me pause, like anyone. Sometimes I alter my path, sometimes not, you have to feel it out. I've been mugged once, avoided a mugging another time due to being aware of my surroundings (and dumb thugs).
My street smarts are pretty good, but if someone has a beef with a white guy, "my sense of purpose" does me nothing. I can hold my own, but a short, white, bald guy is not out-badassing anyone, I suspect.
I'm raising my family here for a reason, so my "street smarts strategy" is a bit different. Instead of head-up, don't smile, walk with purpose, I tend to be more, head-up, smile a lot, talk a lot to my neighbors. When the shit jumps off, I'd rather be that really friendly white guy with the kids hanging all over him WHO WE KNOW, than just some white guy.
rikyrah:
did you see this post?
http://www.ta-nehisi.com/2008/07/the-case-against-diversity-as-a-cure-for-police-brutality.html
Ta-Nehisi writes about these incidents often, can there be no discussion about Freedom from Fear for all people?
I think when it comes to the hood, a white man walking through is the safest person there.
The safest.
I don't understand why certain people choose to live in communities with high rates of crime and then act shocked when crime happens to them. That's part of the problem that I have with the white attitudes in DC (disclosure-I'm black and from Silver Spring).
Right now I live in Malden, MA. It's a fairly boring, family oriented place. Why am I here? Well, I can't afford to live in Cambridge or a safer neighborhood in Somerville, and I don't really want to live in Boston proper.
Sure its inconvenient as far as commuting to work and nightlife, but it makes up for that in other ways. And we have all kinds of races and people on my block. We get along and I dont have to worry about me or my fiance getting robbed to the same extent as if we lived somewhere else.
I guess I'm trying to say that people should balance things out a bit more. I feel for the dude that got shot. I feel for all the people who are crime victims. I wish we could find a way to stand up for them without scapegoating whole groups of people. But I also think that we should understand that you dont have to live in a high crime area and that you should think about "is this something I really want" before you do, especially if you arent from those type of places and know how to navigate.
Forbes, I don't think I understand your question. Having moved to an area with high crime, are we not supposed to be indignant that it has high crime? You're making us sound like the people who buy summer houses in my grandparents farming community, and then get all upset because it smells like cows. I would say that a high level of indignation about crime is an asset in new neighbors. Nor I think are we supposed to shrug it off when people get shot, because after all, they knew the city was dangerous. People shouldn't get shot.
People live in the city for a lot of reasons--Brian's spent a lot of time reporting for Grist, which doesn't exactly suggest moving to the suburbs and buying a car--and yes, there are tradeoffs. But it's not crazy to say that getting shot shouldn't be one of them.
You know, I am a white woman who long lived on a one-way street that was a well-known DC drug market way before gentrification was a reality. Looking out our front window was like watching The Wire live. Eventually, the boys on the street stopped offering me weed & PCP--later crack and more--once they realized I lived *there.*
Yes, I was smart when moving through the neighborhood, not listening to music, kept cash and credit cards in separate places, walked with purpose and rarely had any concerns. But I also knew my neighbors, greeted folks on the street and tried to treat everyone with humanity. I live on the Green Line now and try to make sure my kids do the same. We did the same after opening a business in DC.
To my eyes, there's been an enormous amount of displacement and greater affluence abutting those who can barely make ends meet. And to follow Forbes up, some folks bring a different set of expectations to city life. It is a phenomenon discussed by urban planners--the suburbanization of city space. Now Ta-Nehisi and I may be old and out of touch (OK T, speaking for myself), but I don't think we are seeing the whole picture in terms of social dynamics in the comments here. Preaching to the choir, etc.
That said, I acknowledge that this generation of thugs may be more evil. They do not give a s*** if I talk to their mom. For Megan's commenters who believe that DC should adopt Chicago-style policing--that's where we got Charles Ramsey from.
Lets face it, a lot of the reasons why people are mugged are due to sheer luck. There are people who always live in the suburbs who get mugged during their only trip to the city and there are people who always lived in SE DC yet never got mugged.
Its always a good thing to "put on the cold face" when walking through certain neighborhoods at certain times, but it won't stop the determined mugger. Wearing a gun may help, but again, the determined mugger is simply going to shoot you if you reach for your piece.
Some advice:
1. Don't walk through tough neighborhoods in the dark. If you must do it, walk in pairs or groups. Jogging through those neighborhoods by night alone is just STOOPID, yet I still see people doing that.
3.There is safety in numbers. Single people get mugged much more than couples, and groups of three or more people hardly get mugged at all.
4.Get a dog. Not Fluffy either, but a good sized dog (cocker spaniel or greater). No mugger wants to get bitten, and a dog
is a great early warning system. Virtually nobody is going to sneak up on you.
Following these rules won't reduce your chances of getting mugged to zero, but it will help. If its inconvenient, well them, just move to the suburbia and have done with it.
As to what DC can do, more street lights and a camera at that and similar location will do more than any amount of hand wringing and blaming the victim will to prevent a repeat of this tragedy.
Or it could just be that white people are becoming victims of crime in poor/high-crime/majority black neighborhoods *just like black people often are*, that it's kind of a crapshoot, and that as young white people "choose" to live in those neighborhoods for the same reasons anyone else does--i.e., because they can afford to--they're going to have to deal with the same problems others in those neighborhoods deal with.
Which is to say that I think you're attributing too much, Ta-Nehisi, to the fact that you and your friends weren't mugged when you went to Howard. I'm a smallish white woman who's lived in all kinds of neighborhoods (and has in fact been to parties in the very neighborhood where Brian was shot), and I've never been mugged or raped or robbed or anything. In fact, I once missed being held up at gunpoint in Seattle by about two minutes, when I left a party with a group of friends and then one of us (a white guy) peeled off and walked in the other direction, only to get robbed. Nonetheless, I continued to walk around that neighborhood at night, as I'd done for years, and nothing ever happened to me.
In short, a lot of it is luck or lack thereof. And of *course* what happens to your friends, or what doesn't happen to your friends, is going to seem typical to you, and there's a temptation to draw generalizations from it.
A straight-up comparison of crime stats now to crime stats from back when you lived in DC would be more illuminating, really.
(All that said, yes: I think that in terms of *feeling* afraid, feeleing "different" makes all of us acutely uncomfortable, and difference often falls along racial lines.)
DC could definitely use more cops who get out of their patrol cars...for whatever reason, my neighborhood has had a lot of bike cops in it lately and I find that comforting. They stop and talk to everyone so that they learn who lives here and who doesn't. I don't know if folks like Megan that live in NW have cops doing the same thing or not...but I think it's got to help. Until recently, every cop that passed through my area was just cruising down the street at 20 mph in a patrol car, eyes straight ahead. That's no way to get to know your beat and better protect the public, if you ask me.
It is understandable that a bunch of people, the bloggers in question, would feel unsafe when their friend has been shot multiple times. However, the idea that DC is somewhere to feel majorly unsafe is just funny to me. Living in Baltimore for a few years, the nearest thing I had to a real street problem was a crazy white homeless guy who accused me of stealing his thoughts and wine or something. Since I tend to wear black, have facial hair and brown skin, white people often confused me with a mugger. That happened a whole lot more than black people seeming to scope me out for a mugging. The nearest thing I got to the latter was a black guy from New York asking me where he could buy some pot, which turned into a long, interesting conversation on why the Northeast is cooler than the Mid-Atlantic.
I didn't really feel that unsafe in Baltimore. The times I've gone to DC, including around where the shooting happened, I didn't feel like I was in much more danger than the suburbs. Maybe growing up hearing about all of the members of my family who have been murdered, hearing about family members being the targets of terrorism, etc. just gave me a different outlook.
For an interseting discussion of "street sense" and all that, you should check out "Streetwise: Race, Class, and Change in an Urban Community" by Elijah Anderson.
I was a college kid in the mid 90's in West Philly. During one particularly bad year, in the month of October, there were 31 muggings of students in 30 days. At the time, I told myself all of the things that the commenters above are saying--look street smart, carry the right amount of cash (not too much, not too little), be aware of your surroundings, follow your sixth sense, and so on. But I realize now, that I did these things for me, not the mugger. It was my way of trying to control a situation that I had no control over.
The fact is, most law-abiding people don't have the mugger mentality. We're not mugger mind readers, so do we really know how a mugger analyzes who to target? Do the cops so a post-mug interview and ask the guy why he chose somebody? Are there empirical studies on this stuff (this is a genuine question), or is everything anecdotal?
If you're built like a linebacker or if you always walk with a pit bull, you can probably reduce the likelihood of an attack. Likewise, if you’re a drunk mess covered in diamond jewelry, you’ll probably increase it. But for the rest of us, it’s a crime of opportunity. Wrong place, wrong time. Does the white woman who lived in a sketchy neighborhood *really* know why she wasn't mugged? Sure, she'd like to think that it was due to her mean scowl or her all-business walk. The psyche feels better if it feels like it can control the situation. But how does she know that it wasn't pure dumb luck? Perhaps this "put a scowl on your face" and "don't walk in the shadows" stuff is just a way of placating our brains.
rikyrah:
did you see this post?
http://www.ta-nehisi.com/2008/07/the-case-against-diversity-as-a-cure-for-police-brutality.html
I did. But, it's nothing for you, me, P6, Field Negro, etc., to write posts like that. How come the other side, who lives in urban areas, doesnt write about it? But, a White guy gets jumped and it's 'crime'.
Rikyrah: if it makes you feel better, Radley Balko (http://www.theagitator.com/) has largely made a career out of it.
First: thanks to everyone for the interesting discussion.
Second: it seems to me that everyone patting themselves on the back for their street smarts is being a bit silly. I'm a 28 y/o white guy who lives in DC and a friend of Brian's. I, too, tell myself that my ability thus far to to avoid street crime has something to do with the demeanor I've learned to adopt. But when I think about it more carefully, I realize that's a bit ridiculous. It probably has a lot more to do with me being a moderately big guy who doesn't dress that well -- someone not worth the effort, in other words. And with the fact that I mostly get around by bike. And, more than anything, with the fact that I've had good luck.
We tell ourselves that, once habituated to the city, we learn ways to avoid crime, but that's just self-flattering denial. This incident underscores that. If it had been about a forced transfer of assets it could have been undertaken smartly and probably safely. But go look at this excerpt of the police report:
http://dcist.com/2008/07/03/journalist_shot_in_adams_morgan.php#comment-1399142
With the caveat that I haven't yet heard the story directly from Brian, it sure doesn't sound like this was an incident that could have ended better. One phrase worth of incredulity from the victims was enough to invite murder. These kids weren't after cellphones. They wanted something else, something that Brian and his companion could not have given them.
And that's the terrifying part, and the experience that Mr. Coates hints at but does not quite capture in the post above. If I sometimes feel uncomfortable on the street because of my whiteness, it's not because it marks me as, well, a mark. No, I'm discomfited because I know there is a population of young, poor men in this city who are very angry at people like me, and whose rage may manifest itself in completely unpredictable, unpreventable ways -- ways that may cost me more than a wallet's worth of cash and a trip to the DMV. Hang around the DCist comment threads and you'll see: random beatings; bricks thrown at cyclists; irrational, pointless violence.
I don't really understand it, and I doubt the perpetrators do either. And given those conditions I'm not sure how anyone can expect to stop it.
I've been living in Baltimore for several years now, never been mugged (although I do have friends who have). Although I'd say I'm not very concerned about getting mugged in the neighborhood/streets I'm familiar with, I get worried even when my girlfriend goes out to the alley to dump the trash in the evening.
I can't imagine being a single woman living in Baltimore city. And I definitely think gender trumps race when it comes to victim selection by muggers.
on a side note: Maybe its the scary stories or something, but DC street crime seems a lot more dangerous than Baltimore's. I mean every city has horror stories (a dude was beaten to a coma for his watch right outside of his apartment here about a year ago), but most muggings I've heard of here are of the more peaceful variety - give up your wallet/purse and move along.
Ezra Klein having that many friends who've been shot, mugged at gun point or with a knife is shocking to me as well.
I actually agree with Forbes, and disagree with Megan's second post slightly.
Sure, it helps that a populace becomes highly indignant to crime in its area. And yes, having a neighbor or neighborhood that is indifferent or apathetic in the presence of high crime only makes things worse.
However, Forbes' point still stands. Being shocked or indignant is not going to lower the likelihood of you being a crime victim in D.C. Last time I checked, there were no scientific studies that proved a link between and increase in indignation towards crime and a decrease in violent crime rates. Forbes' point is that it's not how you emote in these situations, it's how you ACT.
D.C. will not get the point until it's swath of upper- and middle-class educated workers (like, say, bloggers maybe) get the eff out of dodge and leave in protest of crime. Population decline is happening in many cities in the U.S. (Boston and N.Y. are two prime examples), suburban sprawl has been the result, and no doubt this has happened in part because many people and families believe it is safer (and cheaper) to live far away from some of the high crime cities in this country.
No, getting shot should not be a tradeoff for living in D.C. But the fact is that a tradeoff for living D.C. actually is an increased likelihood of getting shot. Go figure.
I'm not describing a blame-the-victim situation. I'm a freedom-freak libertarian too. But sometimes the best way to standup for your freedoms to act on them and give a collective middle-finger to the D.C. government for its pathetic performance in crime fighting. Otherwise, who knows who could be next.
Ta-Nehisi's point is surely valid with some muggers - the idea that there is no such thing as an easy mark is something only a white yuppie bragging about his/her neighborhood(s) could believe.
So there are determined muggers, and cold psycho muggers, and most just happen upon victims at certain times and places, etc. So what? If a mugger sees me walking on one side of a street, and Ken Shamrock on the other, I'm toast. The idea that certain potential muggers won't take the path of least resistance is nonsense.
Everyone's throwing anecdotes against a wall, seeing what will stick, and maybe we should just whip out the Venn diagram. Ta-Nehisi (correctly) pointed out the concept of an easy mark, and, upon several reads, never claimed this would work in all scenarios.
In my next post, I'll tell you my skin color and brag about all the urban centers I've lived in, and how my insights are clearly scientific evidence and you all are full of crap.
mattc: your comment makes no sense. The flight of the middle class from DC is what sent the city spiraling into years of decay in the first place. You think that decimating the tax base is really the way to improve city services? Besides which, things in DC *are* getting better. The crime situation isn't great, to be sure, but the statistics don't lie. It's no coincidence that this has happened as people have begun moving back into the city and the government has found itself (relatively) flush with cash.
Indignant citizens are the very thing that *does* spur change. My indignant neighbors are lobbying for ShotSpotter technology; they're getting the police to walk their beats; they're helping the cops identify problem properties and target them for enforcement, they're writing down license plates of people who drive into the neighborhood to buy drugs, they're talking to the kids on the corner and letting them know they can't operate there. Go read Off Seventh (offseventh.org) for a week and tell me a dose of outrage isn't exactly what people need.
Rezko: I don't think anyone is claiming that the easy mark is a baseless concept. I cringe whenever I see someone walking down my street at dusk with their ipod earbuds in. Most of us are just saying that it's ridiculous to kid yourself into believing that a quick pace and a carefully manicured scowl are going to protect you from crime.
@ Tom - nowhere in my post did I claim that the flight of upper- and middle-class individuals reduces crime OVERALL, but what it will do is reduce crime AGAINST THEM. After all, that really is the subject of this blog thread - the plight of "easy mark".
If you read the posts I was referring to, you would understand my point ; then again, it seems like you just want to keep the "tax base" around. Pray tell, how much security our D.C, residents getting for their taxes? Seems to me like the uproar over this latest mugging, and the massive amount of bloggers who themselves have had close encounters, speaks to the pathetic return-on-investment D.C. residents are getting for their tax dollars.
As for governments flush with cash = lower crime rates...I'm sorry, go ask the people of Boston if that's the case now. A wealthy bureaucracy does not a safe city make. You want to reduce crime? Hire more police and throw more violent criminals in jail. Yes, you may need more money to do that, but those are the actions that need to take place.
Again, of course it's a good thing to have indignant neighbors vis-a-vis crime. That's where the policy starts. However, it's not going to protect YOU in the short term (or long term if policy does not change). My point was simple: if one lives in a high crime area, one cannot be shocked when people they know, or indeed oneself, becomes a victim to crime. Statistically, it's more plausible to happen then somewhere with less crime. Until your odds of getting jacked change (that is, until D.C. has a LOW crime rate respective to other major cities), the most likely way to protect yourself is to move to a safer place. It's that simple.
Sorry to be late to the comment party, but I think your ice-grill point is really good. I grew up in a suburb between the South Side of Chicago and Gary IN, so there were a lot of occasions to use it.
Now I live in New Orleans, where the paralyzing fear that some white people have of the majority of the neighborhoods here is paralyzing. There are people I've met who would barely venture outside their 20-block radius. I've found that down here, smiling and being all friendly with ALL the folks in your neighborhood - including those guys who sit on the corner all night, because if they like you, they won't let the thugs hassle you - is the best strategy. And when you're in an unfamiliar place, you can figure out the balance between super friendly or super icy. Walking with confidence is the most important part.
So, even though I'm white and have a small fluffy dog, who if someone pointed a gun in his face would probably lick their leg, I haven't been mugged or robbed (knock on wood). I truly believe that safety is an attitude, and it shows in body carriage. Random incidents are going to happen, but using forethought and not paralyzing oneself with fear, the odds are very, very small, and I refuse to live in fear of something that may never happen.
Ugh, sorry for my overuse of the word "paralyzing." Editing works!
Hm. Interesting. I too was here in the early 90s, when as you say, crime was a LOT higher. I knew maybe one person who was mugged downtown.
At the time I lived in pre-gentrification Clarendon, where there were lots of assaults, burglaries, drug deals, etc. going down as well. Our neighbor was burgled, and I can't count the number of drug deals I spotted. Stolen cars were often dumped in the then-vacant lot next door. One of my best friends was mugged on his way home from CH Metro and beaten nearly to death. It was enough to drive him from the area entirely. A friend who moved to what is now "Upper Dupont" or whatever, half-joked that the first thing he did when moving in was make friends with the dealers in his neighborhood, so they'd know he had a legitimate purpose for being on their turf. Hm, a few more like that, and we'll have some data!
But anyway. I never felt unsafe and didn't personally know more than that one or two people who were assaulted or mugged in the metro area. Once I was followed, but since I just started walking toward the nearest fire/police location the follower gave up once he realized where I was going. I always walk fast, purposefully, and give off the "Keep Back 100 Meters" vibe. On moving to a new area I make sure to learn the local police/fire locations (and as worst-case backup, 7-11s) that are closest to my usual haunts.
This makes it difficult to meet people (no frozen-food-aisle-romance for me!), but easier (so far, touch wood) to stay safe!
if you moved through the streets with purpose, if you kept the ice-grill on and looked like you were all business, if you kept that sixth sense of yours buzzing, the chances of you actually falling prey were pretty low
Maybe some people don't like having to live their lives like that.
I should add that I don't think crime is a race thing. I'm a wimpy bookish-looking white dude, and I've walked around NYC late a night at night plenty of times (including Harlem and other heavily black areas) and I've never felt frightened. I've never felt the need to keep my "ice-grill" on. That's because I know NYC has one of the lowest crime rates in the country. D.C. has one of the highest. Cities owe it to their citizens to make it safe to walk around with an "ice-grill" on all the time. New York shows that it's possible.
I'll second dnA. Living in East Harlem for about 5 years in the 80s, I was given to believe the reason no mugger ever came close to touching me was that the downside wasn't worth it. The cops took crimes against their own kind very, very seriously. Being a young white guy from outside NYC, therefore, was pretty street-smart of me, if I do say so myself.
"As for governments flush with cash = lower crime rates...I'm sorry, go ask the people of Boston if that's the case now."
Violent crime may be up in Boston lately, but on the whole Boston is wealthier and has much lower rates of violent crime than DC or Baltimore. I don't think you can make a serious argument that a wealthier city doesn't have more more options with which to combat crime than a poorer one.