Classism, Socioeconomic Prejudice and the Fear and Loathing that Comes with Going Back into the "neighborhood"

Are you ashamed of your own race? Do you feel superior to the majority of those in your race? Do you disassociate yourself with your own because you think that some other race has it right and yours has it all wrong? You would be surprised to find out that all races have a subculture or disenfranchised subset that they are ashamed of. Your real issue may not be one of race, but one of class and socioeconomic status.

Myself personally I can only get enough of the bourgeois, high society, upper middle class of any race. There is something to be said for getting out amongst "your own people" or those people that you have left behind as you climbed up this ladder. How many of us reach back and help someone make that climb? How many of us go back to the neighborhood and reinvest? I am not referring to those of you that never had to get out of the neighborhood but those of you that used to live here and do not want that new class of people you find yourself with to know about your past. How bad is it really?

People that hate to see both the good and bad in the city annoy me. It is easy to remark about how dirty and grimy the city was, but that dirt and grime was more than enough when you did not have anything and were trying to make it. Everyone should spend a month in the neighborhood and have to walk past prostitutes and drug dealers on the way to the train or the bus. Everyone should spend some time next to someone who is talking to themselves on public transportation. Everyone should have to wait two hours before they can move; there is entirely too much mobility in this country some of us are spoiled and do not know what it truly means for time to stand still. Some of us never slow down enough to see how people really live, we are never inconvenienced and do not know what it is like to go without.

Everyone should be forced to eat white bread, drink that nasty high fructose corn syrup or live off of nothing but hot dogs and peanut butter and crackers for a week. Going without utilities, well I wouldn't wish that on anyone but it isn't very nice particularly when you do not know if, or when, they will get turned back on. Stop talking about how magnificent your city is when both you and me know that the ghetto in your town is larger than a small town. For everyone that is living the good life there are hundreds of people who are doing without.

People say that you should be able to pull yourself up by your bootstraps but to move up can often mean that you need to hold someone else down. Particularly in the business world not everything is fair in love and war. If everyone could afford to live in a decent neighborhood off of a quarter of their income a lot of landlords would go broke. A lot of people are paying the majority of their income to live in a slum not everyone in the ghetto is on Section 8 or welfare. A lot of people are trying to work and get ahead not everyone wants a handout. Plus you see everyone of every color in the ghetto it isn't just minorities.

A lot of you do not really need to be there but you are trying to live below your means. At least you have that option other people have to be there because they do not have any other choice. The city is a filthy, dirty place unless it is a new neighborhood and they can only maintain that look when everyone is paying a lot in taxes. Typically streets are dirty with potholes that will break the wheel off of its axle, trash where it should not be and of course interruptions in service where the lights are turned off and come back on eight hours later. Did I forget to mention that the police may respond in enough time for the perpetrator to leave town?

What is it about humans that make us want to look down on the next person when we were that person at one point in our lives? We're all the same, some of us get breaks and some of create breaks for ourselves some of us are going to be rich and some of us are going to be poor that is just the way that it is. If you were able to get out of that unfortunate situation that is cool, but not everyone is. Are there people who like the life, well of course there are. Despite all of the stress of poverty some people can deal with that a lot easier than they can with the stress of trying to maintain wealth. Some people just aren't well in their mind and have never officially been diagnosed with that mental illness that everyone else knows they have. Life is short and should be lived to the fullest, but one person's idea of a good time may be totally different from yours ...