I am back from Baltimore. What a crazy place that is! The downtown is beautiful and there are giant banners everywhere that say "BELIEVE" like some sort of crazy X-Files episode.
I stayed in a Quality Inn on the outskirts of town. The first morning, thinking nothing of it, I decided to take a bus into town.
BAD IDEA! NEVER TAKE A BUS IN AN UNFAMILIAR CITY IN AMERICA!
I was dressed in an Oxford shirt, pants and shoes (thankfully I do not own a suit or I would have worn that) and it was the first bus stop in a big strip mall street called Security Boulevard.
I asked the bus driver, who looked like a young Ice Cube and wore headphones the whole time he drove, if the bus went near the Convention Center. He looked at me with all the contempt I deserved and said "No, but this bus goes downtown."
I had already waited 30 minutes for the bus so I decided to stay on. I sat down and started editing my book of short stories for the millionth time.
By the time I got to the third story I looked up and the bus was full of poor black people and half of them were staring at me... some in hate and some in disbelief. I felt like saying... "Yes I am the only white person without a car in the USA."
The bus went through... no joke... fifteen miles of cracked out ghetto. All black. All poor. People hanging out in the streets drinking and smoking and (I felt) staring at me. I must have been the only white guy to have taken a bus through their streets in the past 25 years.
I prayed to any listening God that the bus would not break down en route or end abruptly. I was scared and I constantly tried to convince myself that nothing was going to happen. The night before in the hotel bar this hick from Oregon told me Baltimore was a great place for "black boys".
I told him I didn't appreciate racism and furthermore I didn't support the war in Iraq. He told I had pussy hands like a piano player and that whenever he went to Seattle he used to fight as many liberals as he could. We laughed for a while and I bought him a beer and bummed some cigarettes off him.
But now I am in the ghetto. A ghetto that was endless and more desperate than one I could have ever imagined existed in Baltimore. One out of five houses boarded up... people walking around with religious placards on... everyone under 30 looking like if they had one wish in life it was for some dumb white guy in his 30's to get lost in their neighborhood.
Eventually, after about an hour (which seemed like 5 hours) of winding through the ghetto, I saw tall buildings and a cop car. I decided to make a run for it and got off the bus. My instincts were correct, as the bus turned and headed back into the ghetto. It was 5 blocks before I saw a white guy and he offrered to sell me drugs. I needed them but I declined anyway. 5 blocks later I was at the Convention Center.
When I got to the convention, I met a few clients and a few vendors and went on with my day happy to be in one piece. I didn't even care about the huge sweat stains underneath my armpits. Conventions, for some reason, make me nervous I said.
I don't know what I learned from this experience besides never take a bus in an unfamiliar American city. It just makes me sick that many of the people who live in those ghettos will never have the opportunity to see Paris, own a computer, learn to read and write, express themselves artistically. I am no bleeding heart liberal, I am actually a selfish bastard, but I wonder how we can spend hundreds of billions of dollars liberating and rebuilding Iraq when we cannot find the funds to do the same in the ghettos of Baltimore.
Baltimore
Baltimore
"I wonder how we can spend hundreds of billions of dollars liberating and rebuilding Iraq when we cannot find the funds to do the same in the ghettos of Baltimore."
well, i think rumsfeld & cheney would be quite happy if they could do to baltimore what they are doing to baghdad, but perhaps it wouldn't go down too well on cnn. maybe if the blacks converted to islam first.
well, i think rumsfeld & cheney would be quite happy if they could do to baltimore what they are doing to baghdad, but perhaps it wouldn't go down too well on cnn. maybe if the blacks converted to islam first.
Baltimore
sad but true martino.
Baltimore
That pretty much sums up how I felt my short time in Baltimore. I can't remember where I was going at the time, but I was in my car and somehow got lost or something, and I had to get out and ask for directions or get gas or whatever it was, and yeah, these poor black people looked at me like...well...you know. Made me rather nervous. It's weird too cause I've been in some bad sections of D.C. before, even had my car break down there and I don't remember being looked at like such an alien.
Baltimore
The worst part is I went to the National Aquarium... the place where I fell in love with a sloth named Rapunzel when I was 12... and i couldn;t see any sloths
I asked a woman who was working there and she told me it was mating season. Apparently one of the sloths were fighting so they isolated the male and the female was hiding.
I would love to see a sloth battle of the sexes.
I asked a woman who was working there and she told me it was mating season. Apparently one of the sloths were fighting so they isolated the male and the female was hiding.
I would love to see a sloth battle of the sexes.
Baltimore
Go to Baltimore... take the bus ride I did... and then tell me you still think a kid growing up there has a realistic chance of becoming anything but a drug addict.
The ones that do are stars.
The ones that do are stars.
Baltimore
Trust me ... I don't have to go to Baltimore to be cognizant of the problems in ghettos and public housing projects. I started my career many moons ago out of college as a public school teacher and taught in 2 very rough school districts. I'll never forget the start of one school year and I had this 15 year old tenth grade girl who was so excited when she came in. When I asked why, she said it was because she got to ride the school with her baby. As in child. Her kid was entering first grade at the same time she was in the 10th. Those kids used to say the only thing to do for fun there was to smoke dope, drink beer, and have sex. Very YOUNG kids used to say that.
Vicious cycle ... kids raising kids. Working in social services in one way or another hasn't jaded me but it has given me a more pragmatic view of what social welfare programs can and can not do successfully.
myke
Vicious cycle ... kids raising kids. Working in social services in one way or another hasn't jaded me but it has given me a more pragmatic view of what social welfare programs can and can not do successfully.
myke
Baltimore
I'm sorry ... really not being intentionally antagonistic here ... but that line about Bush/Rumsfeld/Cheney was just absolute bullshit. I didn't vote for Bush and won't next time but geez ... I'm smart enough not to equate someone being more conservative than me as being an evil death loving racist! For being a liberal minded individual, what a close-minded sterotypical illtolerant attitude! As for spending tons of money on the ghettos of Baltimore ... will that really work? Has it ever really worked in the past other than breeding a cycle of welfare dependent families? I work with a very diverse group of individuals. Blacks. Whites. Men. Women. Old. Young. Smart. Developmentally Disabled. We all get along great. We've all gotten where we are thru hard work not being handed everything on a silver platter. I come from a poor country family ... was the first to make it through higher ed., etc. Just because I was poor I didn't sink into selling and/or using drugs and gang banging. Poverty isn't an excuse for the way some of the people live in this country. GET OVER IT AND GET OFF YOUR COLLECTIVE ASSES AND MAKE SOMETHING OF YOURSELF. No one shoved dope down their throats, put a knife in their pockets, or caused them to drop out of school. How does that song by Everlast go ... "Man on a corner beggin for your change with shame in his eyes ... get a job you fuckin' slobs aren't even applyin'." .. sounds kinda harsh, but well ....
myke
myke