Racism is a Two Way Street

Life is really heating up in the 'hood and it's got nothing to do with the 90 degree temps. Over the past year this family has put up with strangers coming over to "borrow" things, asking for rides and begging for money. We have had to shut the house up tight and play the TV or stereo loud to cover the thumping of bass boost from the next block over and the yapping dogs in the apartment behind ours. Our assigned parking spaces have been taken innumerable times. One of our cars had graffiti scratched into it and a tire mysteriously flattened overnight.

Last week Blaise (9) came home with a bloody nose. Apparently a bigger boy saw Blaise and his friend Shavion having a mock "slap fight" and didn't think a white boy should be allowed to do that. He started pounding him and before long other boys, "friends" of Blaise's, joined in with the beating or stood passive, watching. Only one came to Blaise's aid. A couple days later Alaric and Diondre (the boy who helped Blaise) were walking along when an adult male yelled to Diondre "Don't hand around with that white boy!" Diondre, much to his credit, ignored him.

Two days ago while taking a morning ride on his bike, Blaise was bitten by one of the dogs that live behind us. It came out of an alley, trotted over to him and attacked, knocking him off his bike. He has three puncture wounds on his calf and some nasty bruises. I was on the phone to animal control within minutes. The next day a control officer came over to inspect the dog owners premises. The owner figured out what was going on and came over to OUR house, following the officer and telling him how our boys tormented her dogs, etc., etc. (Yeah, right....) He told her if she had a problem she could take it to court; he was there to inspect the home. ( Alaric was especially miffed by the woman's blurb because he had, just days before, admonished her grandson, (the boy who started beating Blaise,) to stop pulling the dog's ears and jerking its head around. He said the boy replied, "I can do whatever I want--it's my dog.")

Given the fact that half the neighborhood seems to be related in some way and seems to be getting more aggressive I think that we had better move to our new place quickly before someone really gets burned.