Tuesday, November 23, 2004
Dangerous Camden
I was suprised but not stunned to learn that Camden, NJ is now ranked as the most dangerous city in America. I spent my first year in high school there and my entire senior year (1965) picking up my girl friend who lived right next to the tracks. I believe they considered themselves on the "right side" of the tracks but it was only a wall and four rails away from the "wrong side." I recall one freezing December night, smooching in the car in front of her row house. Before we could steam up the windows, we looked up to see a very large brother sprinting down the middle of the street in his jockey shorts. He ran through the tunnel that went under the tracks. That's how debatable it was to say we were on the "right side." The dude was being chased in his undies through the "right side" to the "wrong side." A carload of other brothers rumbled after him seconds later. Through the closed windows we could hear them screaming threats and insults. It was quite some time before I ventured to drive through the tunnel to take the short cut to Admiral Wilson Blvd, the great white way to the suburbs where I lived and would seek refuge that scary night. I did not see a flattened guy in his briefs. Nor any puddles of blood on the way through the tunnel and around the next block.I was generally too naive, though, to be scared in Camden, although I recognized it as a scary place. I was never afraid of black people or Puerto Ricans who, even then, were the most common groups in the city. I just hoped they understood I wasn't a threat and that I harbored no ill will toward them although I frequently did not understand their culture. That failure of mine to "get it" is even more pronounced today, strangely enough. I have no idea who is to blame for that. Bill Cosby may be oversimplifying it and maybe he isn't. I'm not one to judge.
I was always concerned and on guard by the scary white people I encountered as I waited for my bus in the dark on the steps of the YMCA in Camden. We were on split sessions that first year since half the school had burned down two years prior to that. Underclassmen went home in the dark so the football team could practice in daylight. A white scarfaced wino with no socks in January was way more scary to me than the average black person. The white goodfella with too much money and no apparent means of support was to be avoided. Not Puerto Rican's selling newspapers.
The following year our high school was rebuilt out in the suburbs of Cherry Hill, NJ, where I lived. I didn't feel any safer there. White kids are as cruel and thoughtless at that age as any kid.
Our parish priest was a young Irish guy named Father Michael Doyle. He also taught Latin and religion at our high school, Camden Catholic High. He was and still is a prince of a man regardless of your political or religious beliefs. I can attest to this because I'm with him on one and against him on the other. I should try to get in touch with him 'cause I love the guy and it has been 40 years since I've seen him. In the late sixties he was acquitted of vandalizing the draft board files in Camden. Go Mike! His punishment was administered by the Bishop, though, who yanked him out of his "safe" Cherry Hill parish and sent him to South Camden. He flourished there as the pastor of Sacred Heart parish as the go-to-guy for the disadvantaged who had no voice. He is still there today, as far as I can tell. I'm sure he had the opportunity to leave, many odd bishops later. I would love to hear what he says about his adopted city's new ranking.
Last summer, I spent a weekend in Miami taking a course in a recording studio on some software I did my CD on. I found today's Miami scarier than the Camden I grew up with. Again it wasn't the fact that everyone was speaking Spanish or that it has the feel and culture of a foreign country. I stayed on a very insulated key in a high rise overlooking Biscayne Bay. It belongs to my old high school pal Maria who works in Miami. Like me, she would wait for a bus late on a Friday night after the weekly school dance. She doesn't find Miami any scarier than those days in Camden. So my Miami anxiety was only from reputation. I admit I read way too much Carl Hiassen, Elmore Leonard and Tim Dorsey. The scene that underscores what can be scary about Miami is driving through South Beach and counting the number of young twenty-something guys in Ferraris and Mazzeratis. You know this is drug money because this scene can take place in the middle of a weekday. I just don't think they're driving those wheels as a benefit from their night jobs at the mall. I stand corrected, of course, if you consider selling crack in the food court at the mall a night job.
As if to confirm this suspicion the following scene played itself out as we were sitting in the studio on a Sunday. A late model BMW pulled up and four young people emerged. Possibly in their twenties or late teens. The instructor of my class answered the locked glass door on which they began tapping and nosing. Before he could say, "We're not open for business," they shouted that they wanted to buy a very expensive piece of recording equipment. With cash. Now. The instructor got an employee. A quick transaction was made for an $8000 mixing board. As they pulled away, the instructor shook his head and said, "Man, quick sale. I just love drug dealers."
Creating legitimate jobs for these people would hardly lure them away from the quick buck and the fast car. Good and plentiful jobs would help to create a more stable culture over time, however. The rich call it welfare while at the same time calling welfare for the rich "tax cuts." It all sounds pretty dangerous to me.
posted by Bud @ 8:53 AM
Comments:
Post a Comment
Links to this post: