I’ve lived in a big city for years now. Never seen anybody get mugged, or shot, or carjacked, despite doing activist work that often has me visiting poor minority neighborhoods.
The only time I ever really felt uneasy was when I had to walk alone at night through a neighborhood where all the businesses had bars on the windows. Worst thing that happened was a couple of people asking me for money, and they didn’t give me any shit when I said I didn’t carry cash.
But any time I visit the small town where I grew up there’s always someone or another acting like I came back from a fucking warzone lmao
I live in a city. Today a dude tried to smash my window in and called me a f[slur].
In 2022, a homeless dude stole my bag from my on Burnside.
In 2020, multiple comrades got fucked up by the PPB.
In 2016(?) a comrade of mine was stabbed on the lightrail.
In 2015, a comrade was run over by a fascist (rip Lewis)
In 2014 a comrade had their house ransacked by the pigs during a “wellness check.”
Cities can be violent places. That said, I live in thr suburbs now and desperately miss Portland. Lake Oswego can suck my fucking asshole. I’ll take rest of it any day.
And you know what? It’s more dangerous here. Everyone’s sedentary because they can’t walk anywhere. Everyone’s an alcoholic because they’re alone and miserable. Everyone’s broke because they have to pay for a car. This shit kills people.
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What is the PPB? This is the one time I’ve seen that acronym refer to something other than pig poop balls.
Portland Police Bureau
Even this instance isn’t immune.
Keep Hexbear weird!
I honestly really want to move away from the city I love and lived in for decades. In the last 10 years I’ve moved three times to avoid the violence and it just follows me wherever I go. This year, a 16yo girl was killed in front of my home, two young girls were mugged and the thief attempted to carjack me to escape but he stopped when he saw my baby in the car seat, a man on the corner was shot to death for panhandling the wrong dude, my friend and neighbor was carjacked and hospitalized (she’ll never be the same), a woman ODed in my driveway, my car was broken into twice, I’ve dragged my young daughter, on my back, through the front door to escape gunfire… Twice. This year!
Then there’s the profiling.
And it’s the same shit in every neighborhood. My HS friends want me to move back to [suburb] and, after years of saying no, I find myself seriously considering it.
The suburb where I grew up was and is a conservative, racist, white flight town. And it was hard being who I am. It’s where I learned to truly hate cops. But I never thought I’d be killed by random violence. And my parents never dragged me by my shirt away from gunfire.
It may be a grass is greener situation, for sure. But I don’t want to die and I don’t want my family to die. I’m full of existential dread. I can’t afford to move anyway.
holy crap, what city is this?
Good ole Nola