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Old 02-13-2015, 07:35 AM
 
Location: Austin, TX
1,825 posts, read 2,819,896 times
Reputation: 1627

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With Porches And Parks, A Texas Community Aims For Urban Utopia : NPR

Part 3 comes out this afternoon.

As a soon-to-be Mueller resident, I was interested in where this article originated. Apparently the reporter started out with something more banal (like the walking club) but discovered that there were meetings being held to address racial issues and so made that the focus of the story.

Personally, I find the whole story insufferably smug and lacking much of a center. "Property owners suspicious of black man moving furniture' doesn't seem to be news; the only thing that seems to be news about it is that it happens even in the Prius-laden 'showcase' neighborhood of liberal Austin, as if the fact that you build parks, public pools, and houses closer together than other suburbs should magically negate people's prejudices. I also came out feeling a bit bad for the unnamed origin of the incident in the story - the person who made the mistake of 'reporting' a 'suspicious person' only to find it was one of their neighbors, who then apologized profusely but apparently insufficiently, and now that incident was elevated to neighborhood-wide racial issues.

I want these folks to spend one week on the Circle C facebook page to see the kind of thing that can cause a vocal minority (that is, your typical poster/suburban dweller - not the actual, racial minority) to flip out. There are folks who think that you should call 911 if somebody cuts you off on Escarpment while your precious child is in the car. There are folks who will call 911 if someone comes to your door to sell something in spite of your 'no solicitors' sign.

The extent to which this story is a good one seems to me the possibility that other suburban types may not rush to assume that the dude on your street in a sweatshirt is a criminal, but even then, that will only last until your neighbor's car gets broken into and you go back into castle defense mode. Though I think most of the worst crimes in SW Austin one hears about involve pet mutilation and are performed by white teenagers!

Overall, though, I'd sum this up as 'just because you have solar panels and voted for Barack Obama doesn't render you immune to human failings.'

 
Old 02-13-2015, 07:50 AM
 
109 posts, read 148,087 times
Reputation: 78
Prejudices learned as a child are hard to overcome. We can hide it and sort of mask it but it will always be there under the surface. The best we can do is not pass on those prejudices to the next generation.
 
Old 02-13-2015, 09:56 AM
 
Location: CasaMo
15,972 posts, read 9,356,715 times
Reputation: 18547
Quote:
Originally Posted by Aquitaine View Post
Personally, I find the whole story insufferably smug and lacking much of a center.
I read it and I felt like I was reading a satirical spoof and the opening picture with an adult riding a scooter.
 
Old 02-13-2015, 10:10 AM
 
Location: Austin, TX
15,255 posts, read 35,526,921 times
Reputation: 8598
Quote:
There are folks who think that you should call 911 if somebody cuts you off on Escarpment while your precious child is in the car. There are folks who will call 911 if someone comes to your door to sell something in spite of your 'no solicitors' sign.
Ha! I have a few of those neighbors!
 
Old 02-13-2015, 10:26 AM
 
Location: home
1,235 posts, read 1,526,842 times
Reputation: 1080
Quote:
Originally Posted by Trainwreck20 View Post
Ha! I have a few of those neighbors!
Same here. It's pretty much policy in our neighborhood to call the police on solicitors. Everyone is encouraged to do so.
 
Old 02-13-2015, 10:41 AM
 
Location: Austin, TX
1,283 posts, read 2,731,024 times
Reputation: 1040
I would ask everyone to think what if the situation was reversed and you were among the few white residents in an all-hispanic or black community and neighbors were reacting that way to you. Not good. Unfortunately, this experience happens far too often with minorities in Austin (so much so) that it has become unofficial APD policy not to come to reports of suspicious minority persons unless they are actively committing a menacing or violent act.

As a previous poster stated, as this irrational fear is learned from childhood and lack of experiences outside of your own communities, for some these incidents never cease in their lives (they keep happening) - from birth to grave. You are always suspicious until you are not around. Some people will always see you as "the other" or the [blank]. That does things to your mind - and they're not good.
 
Old 02-13-2015, 11:09 AM
 
Location: Austin, TX
1,825 posts, read 2,819,896 times
Reputation: 1627
Quote:
Unfortunately, this experience happens far too often with minorities in Austin (so much so)
Here's the thing: if you live in the burbs, this happens everywhere. It isn't just about black folks. If somebody that doesn't look like your neighbors shows up wearing a hoodie, you can bet that some people will jump to conclusions. In some places, they might be smart to do so; it's just basic human pattern recognition: you don't look like most of what I see around here and I'm sensitive to xyz recent report of property crime, so my brain is going to discriminate (in the literal, non-pejorative) sense of the word.

Here's the other side of this coin: sometimes, the prejudiced suburbanite is right. APD still tells everybody in this neighborhood to report any suspicious activity, and a number of bad guys have been caught because of observant neighbors. It only turns around to bite you if you're wrong. That's not really at odds with the notion that they don't investigate these reports, because when they come out to talk to the neighborhood, they still encourage reporting anything, no matter how banal it might seem. I suspect these reports go into a file and aren't looked at again unless they have a specific, real criminal they're after.

The question isn't just 'how do you treat minority neighbors,' it's 'how do you treat minority neighbors who share visual appearance characteristics that show up out of proportion when looking at those responsible for property crime,' and that's the iota of the article that I liked: address it head on! Have a meeting, get to know your neighbors! Thomas Sowell has a lot to say about this kind of thing; there are plenty of middle-class areas where black folks are in the majority but they make the same prejudiced judgment calls as everybody else does. Remember ten or twelve years ago when banks were in hot water because they were disproportionately refusing loans to black applicants? Some of the worst offenders were banks owned wholly by black people. Why? Because their pattern recognition (i.e. loan algorithms) spat out default probabilities that didn't look like a college admissions pamphlet. That's not irrational fear; that's a computer program. No different than the white-owned bank that doesn't want to lend to poor white folks in rural Alabama: just because they're white doesn't mean they have much in common with a suburban family in Jersey, Texas, or anywhere.

The question of how do you catch the bad guys without also suspecting somebody solely because they don't look like you is one that affects every neighborhood with a high degree of homogeneity. Mueller isn't special here, though Austin wants to think of it as its special snowflake neighborhood. It's the kind of place where people love to talk about Austin being an 'oasis of civilization,' not that NPR cares how insulting that is to the rest of Texas -- only some of which deserves the unfavorable comparison.

The right thing to do here is what the black residents did: suggest to their neighbors that, if you don't know any black folks, you're more likely to make the wrong assumption, because all you see is 'different than me.' If you know your neighbors, you can tell the difference between them and somebody who doesn't belong, because you'll notice more than just their color. That's the key, isn't it? It's not 'pretend that patterns don't exist' or 'don't discriminate' -- it's 'learn to discriminate without prejudice.' Most folks in NYC and LA have to do just that, even if they don't admit it.
 
Old 02-13-2015, 06:57 PM
 
Location: Austin, TX
12,059 posts, read 13,834,461 times
Reputation: 7256
NPR exposed the underlying real Austin. We can't hide from our ugly past.
 
Old 02-13-2015, 10:53 PM
 
Location: New Orleans, LA
1,579 posts, read 2,334,134 times
Reputation: 1155
Have a friend that said the people in this neighborhood had been experiencing a rash of burglaries and a disproportionate amount of those types of crimes are committed by blacks. All you have to do is do the math and let human nature do the rest. I don't think what these people did is evil or malicious. It's not like they attacked the the black guy or infringed upon his rights. You don't have a right to be automatically trusted by everyone. There's plenty of other physical appearances that people judge.
 
Old 02-13-2015, 11:15 PM
 
Location: Austin, TX
1,283 posts, read 2,731,024 times
Reputation: 1040
Quote:
Originally Posted by things and stuff View Post
Have a friend that said the people in this neighborhood had been experiencing a rash of burglaries and a disproportionate amount of those types of crimes are committed by blacks. All you have to do is do the math and let human nature do the rest. I don't think what these people did is evil or malicious. It's not like they attacked the the black guy or infringed upon his rights. You don't have a right to be automatically trusted by everyone. There's plenty of other physical appearances that people judge.
Folks, don't be surprised. Sadly, this is just a normal day in Austin.
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