Merry Christmas. Now Go Home.

This happened two miles from my new house, and although it didn't happen in my neighborhood, it's close by and I can't tell you how very sad I am that it happened. I grew up in a racist working-class neighborhood, and it brings back some bad memories.

Let me point out that while the actions of these punks are despicable, I'm all too familiar with the kinds of fears that drove them.

In a time of decreasing jobs and increasing financial worries, the only real security people have going for them in urban working-class neighborhoods is home ownership, and the most fearful people react to any perceived threats. I saw it where I grew up; people panicked when the neighborhood was first integrated, which resulted in the classic "white flight."

Instead of blaming the blockbusting realtors who scared residents out of the area with organized tactics like late-night phone calls, warning people they'd "better get out now," our neighbors blamed the black people who were simply looking for a better place to raise their families. No one who hasn't actually lived through it can understand just how blatantly financial interests will consciously foster racial hatred.

Which doesn't apply in this case, and wouldn't excuse it, anyway. It's always a small minority of neighborhood punks who actually do this sort of thing, and their "courage" usually involves a couple of six-packs.

Anyway, so it's a week before Christmas and this family (they have a little girl - she'd never had her own room, and that was her big present, her father said) is now out their deposit. I don't know about you, but I emailed the reporter because I want to send the guy a check:

Looking back now, the older construction worker's words were downright prophetic.

Earlier this month, when Shawn Jenkins and his girlfriend decided it was time to move out of Feltonville, he asked his fellow construction workers for their opinions on his planned destination.

Jenkins had fallen in love with a tidy, red-brick Port Richmond rowhouse that was being rented out by a relative of one of his co-workers.

The neighborhood was quiet, tree-lined and clean.

The block of Edgemont Street near Cambria that Jenkins and his girlfriend - who are black - soon planned to call home was predominantly white, but he didn't expect any racial tensions.

"Everyone said we should be fine, but this one older guy at my job, he said, 'You don't want to do that. They'll burn you out of there,' " Jenkins said last night.

"I guess he was right."

Though they didn't actually resort to arson, vandals broke into 2917 Edgemont St. earlier this week, shattering windows and scarring the walls with hate-filled graffiti, declaring "All n-----s should be hung," police said.

Jenkins and his 21-year-old girlfriend - who was also verbally harassed when she visited the house over the weekend - were left shaken by the hate crime, which sounds like a leftover nightmare from the Jim Crow era.

"You just don't think that this kind of stuff would go on today," Jenkins said.

Comments

[realitytrumpsbull]

I think there's an atmosphere of self-preservation out there today that's getting
more hostile, more competitive, more exclusive,
and regardless of ethnicity, it's still
getting Ugly out there. The mortgage thing
is big, no, BIG, and from what I've read, it's
not over by a long shot. A lot of people have
done a lot to themselves and others over money.
Be sure to thank your global mortgage banker!

Personal anecdote: I moved into a predominantly
latino area, and I didn't get burned out, but
I did get followed, and a guy pretty much
tried to run me over, and this one morning,
probably 2AM or so, I woke up, and
I heard an engine running...and running...and
running...went outside, and the truck drove
away, never did see who was in it, but suffice
it to say, you never can tell when there's
going to be some kind of ethnic friction, some
people really don't want to integrate, and
there's a lot of people out there on the sly
talking their talk. Something to keep in mind,
go out and meet people in the area before you
decide to move there...you never know until
you actually go what kind of neighborhood it'll
be...we live in interesting times...

[Ravenlea]

How sad and ugly.

As you said, a bad economy and a generalized climate of fear brings out the worst in people, plus I think we are being fed a not very subtle diet of it's ok to hate people courtesy of Bush and Cheney. But Democrats are not innocent on this one either. It's not a long leap from blaming all our problems on Muslims and illegal immigrants to blaming them on anybody who's different.

I so want the current administration impeached and real change in this country. I wish Dennis Kucinich was not being cut out of the running by a media which has disenfranchised him (and others) by choosing candidates for us.

Increases in the minimum wage, universal health care, among other things, would go a long way towards restoring hope and vibrancy to this country.

[ljsfolly]

Sad to think how a few will destroy the whole neighborhood. Those who did this crime not only destroyed the families dream but the whole neighborhood as they are who represents the neighborhood now. The people who live in the area should look at those around them who did this act and thank them for showing them to be racist fools no better than the past thousand of years when anyone different or aspiring for a dream was quickly put in their place for having such ideas. Just whn you think we have gotten further down the road away from such horrible treatment of others racism comes out of it's hiding place. So sad a child is the most victim of this act.

[LittleBrother]

I truly hope that the police aggressively investigate this vile atrocity, and that the perps are paraded on teevee and the newspapers in all of their brutal, brain-dead vainglory. And don't let them put their jackets and hoodies over their heads, either. Let the world see the noble visages of these Master Race heroes.

I don't think that even the beetle-browed readership of the Daily News will flood the letters page to defend this craven and vicious act.

Funny how Defenders of the White Man's Way of Life invariably do their nefarious deeds in the dark of night, then scuttle away like cockroaches into the woodwork. Real profiles in courage, eh?

(I apologize to the cockroaches, who are a class act in comparison with these low-lives.)

Not only should a fund be set up for the family-- civic leaders should make it a point to find them a comparable house in a DECENT neighborhood ASAP. And provide assistance in moving, enrolling the child(ren) in school, etc. if the family is agreeable.

Surely the government of the City of Brotherly Love would wish to let its citizens, and the rest of the world, know that this sort of petty, ugly racism will not be tolerated. And part of the response ought to involve making a special effort to right the wrong by ensuring that the victims are made whole.

Maybe they'll never be able to live happily ever after, but they shouldn't have to suffer insult after injury by just being hung out to dry and left to recover from this sick assault as best they can.

I agree that Amerika's collapsing and corrupted economy and social policies (or lack thereof) create a "behavioral sink" in which desperate and powerless people turn on each other instead of their oppressors. But that doesn't justify this hate crime.