I grew up on Atlanta’s southwest side (in The West End, for all those familiar with the town). Back in the day–before the spread of post-Olympics gentrification–anything south of downtown was considered the “hood”, at least from the lofty vantage point of “uptown”.
I was bussed uptown, like many black kids in Atlanta at that time (don’t know about now). We were all too familiar with not only the obvious differences between our own neighborhoods and the areas surrounding our schools, but also the perception of our neighborhoods by our classmates. Starting from an early age, we all knew we came from the “wrong side of the tracks”. The kids I went to school with–the kids who lived near school–didn’t know anything about my neighborhood, whereas I knew tons of stuff about theirs. And yet they had a perception about my neighborhood being bad, or at least objectively worse than theirs.
But I never felt like my neighborhood was all that bad. There were professionals who lived on my block along with regular, working-class folks. Also a lot of dreadlocked, kente-clothing wearing Afrocentric folk. Most of the homes were well-kept–some of the houses were old, expensive Victorians set behind iron gates and tall hedges, with pools in the back. As a kid, I never felt like I couldn’t ride my bike around or play with the other kids. We had festivals and parades and cultural centers (The Shrine of the Black Madonna, St. Anthony’s, The Wren’s Nest where Joel Chandler Harris lived.) Across the street from my house was the grocery store owned by the Koreans, the laundry mat/furniture store where I would pick up Mommy’s clothes and play video games, and the auto mechanic who always gave us a discount. Down the street, just a quarter of a mile away, was the West End Marta station and the West End mall. Krispy Kremes just around the corner. A very urban, bustling part of town–not bleak “inner city”.
Not to say my “hood” didn’t have its bad sides. Gun shots would rattle off at night sometimes, and our house got broken more times than I’d like to admit. It wasn’t unusual to find homeless/crazy people strolling down the street, and there were a few shady neighbors sprinkled here and there. But the bad things weren’t enough to scare my family away for almost twenty years. My parents could have moved us any time they wanted to (my father worked in east Cobb County…talk about a lousy commute) but they didn’t. (They finally did move, but it was because my mother wanted her “dream” home…which she didn’t dream about until after all her children had moved out of the house.)
I don’t think having grown up where I did makes me more special or noble than anyone else. Like I said, I don’t think the area was that bad. However, I do think it’s made me especially sensitive, in general, to remarks about “bad” neighborhoods. The other day, a coworker of mine said he was going to visit Atlanta. He asked me to steer him away from the “bad” parts of town when he asked for directions to the Varsity :rolleyes:. Um…I got a little snippy and told him that if he happened to find himself in a “bad” part of town, he’d bump into people like me. The nice, friendly people who make up the city.
Another coworker who has just moved down here always complains about how bad her neighborhood is. She hasn’t been a victim of crime or had anything bad happen to her (as far as I know), and yet she always feels unsafe. In addition to having grown up in SWATS, I did a five-year stint in Newark, NJ. So I’m having a hard time not taking her by the shoulders and telling her to toughen up.
I don’t know if it’s a racial thing or city-slicker thing or a class thing, but it just works my nerves whenever I hear people talk badly about neighborhoods…especially those places they haven’t been before. There are truly bad neighborhoods–don’t get me wrong. But I think people way too often assume a place is bad without really knowing anything about it. I don’t like this.
Is anyone else like me?
. She feels largely the way you do.
I’d have them driving from the heart of the hood on Ralph David Abernathy (formerly Cascade Road) to Northside Drive to Whitehall until they got back I-20 and Memorial Drive on the edge of downtown by the “new” Greyhound Bus station and Magic City; I’d let them cut up Forsyth in the heart of downtown, right where they’d have to drive past Underground Atlanta and see all the MARTA-dependent black people milling around. Then when they should continue North, I’d have them turn East down Peachtree to Auburn Avenue and check out historical black Atlanta and the King Memorial. Then maybe I’ll be nice and let them take Boulevard over past the North Avenue hood, then back on to Peachtree Road and the Fox Theatre again. Once they’re back on the nice, safe business district they’ll be just fine.