View from the Roof

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. Not.

I'm a resident of the Seneca-Babcock area of Buffalo. I almost wrote that I was a life-long resident, but that isn't exactly true. I spent a few years in Syracuse and a few years in Poughkeepsie, with weekly and sometimes daily trips to The City. Which at least gives me some perspective.

This is a tightly knit community. Many of the families living here have been here for sixty years or more. Nieces, nephews, uncles, aunts, cousins, etc...If you drew the family trees I expect you'd end up with something akin to hedge row.

And as in any community there exists a set of norms, mores, and values. It's what defines a community. It actually surprises me sometimes when I review the police logs for the 'A' district and find hardly any calls from within the neighborhood proper. Not to say we don't have our share of problems. But, they're our problems. One way or another they are dealt with.

Yes, it's true, outsiders are met with suspicion. I suppose that could be said in Tikrit as well. But that doesn't make us racists. Or does it? People tend to characterize it as fight or flight. We didn't flee. Does that mean we are fighting? Fighting what?

The particular incident was reported in the Buffalo News as a racially motivated attack. The phrase which irks me the most is from the News report "that Buffalo police said was racially motivated."

Did the Buffalo police issue an official statement that the attack was racially motivated? Or is this implied from the charges brought? Or it is the opinion of an interviewed officer? Just because racial slurs were apparently uttered during the heat of conflict doesn't mean the conflict was racially motivated. But, that is for the courts to decide.

Personally, I was quite satisfied with the News' reporting of the anti-discrimination rally held in Seneca-Babcock. It did seem to capture the local residents frustration with the apparent grandstanding of outside groups of what is seemingly an internal matter.

More troubling still was the editorial of 07-20-05 "Make Seneca-Babcock Proud."

"police say an attack Saturday on a black man was due to the color of skin.." Again, did the police actually say this? Who said this and why? By the way, I was raised as a polish catholic and pride is considered a sin. And what the anti-racism demonstrators met the other day, was not a group of anti-anti-racism demonstrators but a group of proud city dwellers who refuse to let their nieghborhood be taken over by mindless hoods.

Sinners all of us.

posted by Chris @ 3:40 PM