Living in the 'hood.

[Mythsaje]

It's a notorious area of Tacoma, mostly black, that, several years ago, made national news with its gang problem. Over the past several years the gangs have primarily moved to outlying areas, leaving Hilltop a pretty peaceful place.

I used to work with a young white woman who dated only black men and had become engaged to one in the past year or so. She used to ask me how I could live on Hilltop, considering the class of people I had to deal with.

Class of people? Well, my neighbor across is the street is a great guy. He says hi from time to time and gave me some gas the last time I mowed my lawn so I didn't have to run to the store. His son used to do my yard but he's been in county lockup for the past six months (I don't know why--I wouldn't presume to ask. His son had one of those tracking anklets on when we moved in and it was several months before he could leave the yard. Every so often he'd bum a cigarette and I'd have to carry it across the street to him so he wouldn't get in trouble.

We have no garage or parking area on our property, so we have to park in front of the house on the street. Despite the area, our cars have never been molested in any way, except one time my wife's window got broke, but we've come to the conclusion that it was a freak incident involving a flaw in the window, moisture, and cold weather. Nothing in the car was disturbed.

Since we have a large yard, sometimes people park in front of the other end and smoke something or another in the car--it may be pot, it may be something else. But, other than the fact that some of them throw cans and other garbage into the corner of my yard, I have never had any trouble with any of them.

We're one of only a few white families on our whole street. The neighborhood kids all know us as the people with the dogs and some will come visit my Shiba (the friendliest of the bunch) who absolutely loves kids.

The neighbor across the street describes us as "good people," though neither my wife and I are particularly sociable. They can tell by the fact that we rarely have company that it's not a race thing, just the way we are toward most everybody. In general there are only two people that ever stop by, and even that's quite uncommon.

One of the things I like about living in a black neighborhood is that our neighbors really seem to respect our space. Though many of them are regular church-goers, they don't come knocking on our door asking us to attend, or wondering why we don't. We don't stick our nose into their business, and they don't stick their nose into ours. But if anyone who doesn't belong starts messing where they shouldn't be, everybody will say something about it.

I've lived in a lot of neighborhoods in my life and I really like this one. It's a fairly quiet street, especially since the neighbor's kid went away and his buddies stopped partying out on the street. He's a good kid, though, and I hope he gets out soon, though I'll miss the peace and quiet without his friends hanging around.

Thankfully I don't know a lot of racist people, but I'm willing to bet any number of freepers would be aghast to know where I live. But I know that freepers would never be welcome here and that's another good thing about it. I much prefer to share my neighborhood with the people I do than any freeper type. And I wouldn't trade it for anything.

I live in a house built all the way back in 1910. It needs a lot of work, which I'm doing a little at a time. The electricity was redone sometime in the '70s, I think, and the plumbing even more recently. Of course, the people who did the plumbing were morons, as were the folks who added to the back of the house.

I think people sometimes wonder how we can live where we do. The woman I used to work with commented on it more than once. So we live around working class African-Americans in the 'hood. She and her fiance lived in the suburbs and drove SUVs. When she bought her SUV I laughed at her for it, telling her she'd regret it when gas jumped up. She told me that it wouldn't bother her. Well, when it DID jump and she started bitching, I had to laugh again. I didn't say "I told you so," but I wanted to.

I don't know if her attitude about my neighborhood was a subtle form of racism, or classism, or a mixture of both. Maybe her deal was that African-Americans were okay as long as they had money, or lived in a "good" neighborhood. I never did quite figure that out.

I'd rather live where I do than where she does, any day of the week. Maybe it's a bit strange for a white couple nearing middle age, but there you have it. Even with some of my neighbors' friends smoking who knows what in front of my yard at all hours of the night. I don't have to lock my cars in a garage to keep them from being robbed.

What does THAT tell you?

[lvx35]

1. Last time I was on hilltop in Tacoma...

Semi-auto gunfire broke up the silence of the night, then there were cops going all around with search lights. My friend lived in a nice 3 story house for cheap, but I decided it wasn't worth it. This was around 2000.

[Mythsaje]

2. That was about the end of that phase...

Every ONCE in a while I hear a gun go off in the distance, but probably not more than two or three times a year.

[lvx35]

3. That's what I heard.

I hear a gun more often than that down here in Olympia....Sounds like hilltop is cleaned up.

[Mythsaje]

4. It really has...

I live in a nice quiet neighborhood with good people.

And I'm glad of it.

[sweetheart]

5. visuallly

I google earth'd this image of part of hilltop, just gives more colour to your story.


I agree that a neighborhoods that are generally poorer are more tolerant
with more of a sense of community than one could ever purchase at walmart, even if
it were on sale.

[Mythsaje]

8. That's a little SW of where I am, but it's the general area.

Thanks for the visual.

[NJCher]

6. class

Your neighborhood sounds pretty good, all things considered. I'd put up with a trash can or some litter now and then if I were surrounded by people who respected my privacy and were down-to-earth human beings.

What disturbs me is the behavior of some upper middle class whites. The selfish, all-consuming, it's all about me and my SUV type of person. I guess to be fair, I should say that I also find upper middle class blacks who turn Republican to be disturbing, too, although I do understand their desire to keep money in the family.





Cher

[Mythsaje]

7. At least I know that there are no freepers in the neighborhood...

THAT will drop property values in a hurry.

:D

[melnjones]

9. In defense of those neighborhoods that aren't to that point yet...

I live in the "ghetto" of my little city as well and get the same comments from well-meaning friends and aquaintances all the time. "You live on WHAT corner? People get SHOT there!" From what I can tell, having only lived in this city for 7 years and in this neighborhood for less than 2, the crime really has gone down. But I still hear gunshots usually a couple times a week. Last spring there was an attempted shooting (attempted b/c somehow no one got hurt) on my corner. My neighbor was on her porch and was close enough to see the smoke from the gun. I was behind my house with my housemate and neighbor kids, and we thought it was fireworks until we saw the screaming mob of people running away, lol. It made for a good story at least. Anywho, yes, we still have crime in the area, stuff gets stolen (although luckily since I've moved in I've only had a bike stolen...before I bought the house the water heater, furnace, toilet, lighting fixtures, etc had all been stolen out of the house), drug busts, we had one murder a few blocks away (I guess you could call it accidental?...the bullet missed the intended person and hit an innocent bystander on her porch). We are getting more and more racial tension as more hispanic families move into this historically African American area, so that's not a good thing. BUT, I've never enjoyed a neighborhood so much. My next door neighbors have become my second family in so many ways. I'm a single grad student with one housemate renting from me. So, when they have leftovers, they bring them over to me. When I need someone to feed my cat while I'm gone, they take care of it. I lend them the lawnmower I'm borrowing from a friend so they can do their yard, and they cut mine while they're at it. I lend them a few bucks when they need it, which they always always pay back. They ask me if I need anything when they go to get groceries. Slowly I'm getting to know other neighborhood families as well, and they are great. Friendliest most cooperative neighborhood I've ever lived in...including the guys who are in and out of jail or on house arrest. I'm not stupid...I take my precautions as much as I can, and I'm not over-trusting of people I don't know, but things have been great here. I'd never ever go back to the white middle class neighborhoods if I could help it. Never. For as long as I'm here, this is my home. Just wanted to add that even the neighborhoods that still have crime can be absolutely great:-)

[Mythsaje]

10. Oh, I'm sure there's crime...

and we have some amount of security because we have entirely too many dogs to mess with. And, then again, it depends on what you call crime. During the summer the kids will sit out on their cars and drink beer right there in the open, smoke whatever, and play their music to all hours (really annoying when you have to go to work the next morning), and conduct screaming matches until one of the old ladies in the neighborhood opens up the window and tells them to "shut the fuck up!"

The neighbor across the street had his van stolen a few months after we moved in, but he knew who did it.

There aren't any break-ins on this block, but UPS makes you sign for packages because they've gone missing from porches. Not ours, but, well, dogs. Even if they're inside I think they make people nervous.