"if you can't handle the ghetto, then get out."

Let's get things straight- I never feel unsafe in my neighborhood.  Maybe I don't walk around by myself late at night or maybe I'm more naive than I like to believe but I think, of the many places that are unsafe to live in DC, Capitol Hill is not at the top of that list.  More over, although my area of CH is not the wealthiest, I am sure it does not qualify as the ghetto. I've been to Oakland (and I don't mean the gentrified part), I've shadowed my aunt who is a social worker in Philadelphia and she took me to North Philly, and I've been to really bad parts of Portsmouth and Richmond, Virginia more times than I can count (whose murder rates, according to publishers Morgan Quinto Press who publish an annual safest and most dangerous cities report based on FBI statistics, rival the murder rate of Washington DC). When i lived in Italy we had a car bomb go off a block from our house.  This is definitely not one of the scariest places to live which is why I moved here instead of near my law school that's in North East DC. So, I think I can say pretty firmly that the neighborhood I live in does not qualify as "the ghetto" or super dangerous. Does that mean I would walk around here drunk by myself at midnight, no. BUt that also means I don't feel scared for my life at 2 pm on a saturday afternoon.

So why is it that I was told not long ago by a 13 year old from my neighborhood, after he and his friends attempted to shine a laser pen in my eye while i was parking that "if you can't handle the ghetto, then get out!"? Do the kids who live in my neighborhood really think that Capitol Hill, right near Eastern Market, is the ghetto? Am I missing something?

I never really was bothered before by that comment. Mostly because when young kids say things to me in my neighborhood it's normally of the sexually harassing nature and I've just developed a habit of paying no mind to it. I don't walk around in Lacoste shirts or drive a BMW. My friends who live here don't wear Polo and khakis. I like to think that I don't look like some yuppie who just moved into the neighborhood because i was searching for something that felt "real".  My block is mostly young people who are either in grad school or working or older people who've lived here for more than 2 decades.  So today, when I was assaulted (explanation to follow), I wondered, why was I targeted? What did I do? Is it because I'm a woman? Is it because I'm white? why the FUCK did I get assaulted?

Little did I know, it was NONE of the reasons that one might expect...

My best friend and her boyfriend are in town this weekend. Because I have to work on a paper all day for law school they decided to go to Shamrock Fest and we decided would hang out tonight after the paper got turned in.  I offered to drive them to RFK since it's not too far and taking the metro would be a nightmare.  We're heading out to my car and A is commenting how she doesn't know how families can live in DC (there's a significant amount of families in our neighborhood.) and I begin explaining to her that it's not as dangerous as people make it out to be. True, there are some very dangerous places, but where I live the only crime that happens on any sort of regular basis are car stereos being stolen.  As the three of us are walking to my car, a group of 4 kids, probably 13 years old, maaaybe 14 are across the street. I'm talking to A and her boyfriend as I'm getting into my car and BAM something with the speed and force of a baseball being thrown at me hits me in the arm. I look down and it's a giant fucking rock. not a pebble. not a stone. a rock as big as my fist. no joke. 

i'm absolutely shocked. not suspecting the kids across the street i start looking around. did it fall out of the fucking sky? did someone throw it out of a window. i say to A and her boyfriend "where the HELL did that come from? if it had hit me in the head I would no kidding be bleeding right now." A says, those kids just threw it at you." oh. hell. no. I am not an easily intimidated person. i am not a tiny person. at 6 feet tall I am a woman who is not easily scared by children.  

i look over and i realize it's the same kids who harassed me when i first moved in, who shined that laser pointer at me, and who told me to "get out of the ghetto." Maybe if I were still the SG who just moved into this neighborhood from a suburb in Arlington would've just ignored them like I used to. But not today. THis is my neighborhood too. I live here. I love this city and I'm not going to be scared by kids who can't even drive let alone hurt me on a one-on-one basis. So I tell A and her boyfriend to get in the car, turn and start yelling at the kids.  "What do you think you're doing? WHo do you think you are?" and pretty much anything you would picture an old woman sitting on her front stoop in a house coat holding a broom would shout.  THe kids looked shocked. Maybe it was the initial shock of actually hitting me (maybe they just meant to hit my car...which, as i found out was most likely) or the fact that some chick wasn't taking their shit.  THey hustled into their building. I get in the car and start muttering how the kids in our neighborhood really lack respect when one came back outside and threw this pipe he had in his hands at my car. It fell short of my car, bounced in the air and then off the hood of my car. It was plastic. no damage done. we leave.

I come back and tell G (we're still living together for the time being but not together anymore. and life is civil and we get along. apparently breaking up was actually beneficial for both of us but that's a post for another day) what happened.

G: You have to call the police.

Me: i don't want to cause any trouble. other than the bruise on my elbow i'm fine and really i barely remember what they look like so I'd pretty much make a horrible witness.

G: even if it was just a rock, they assaulted you. 

Me: but i just don't want to be a bother.

G: just do it. you'll feel better.

he was right. I called 311 because it was a non-emergency and really didn't think it was that big of a deal. the dispatcher at 311 said that in order for me to file a report a police officer has to come out which can only be dispatched through 911. so i got transferred to 911, spoke with an operator and the police were here within seconds. i made sure that i emphasized to her that it was a non-emergency because i don't want to occupy resources that someone else might need. G kept explaining to me that even though i wasn't injured, i could've been and this is what the police are here for- to help people.

So the nicest officer comes and I explain to him everything. He takes a report and tells me how he's had to personally deal with kids in this neighborhood doing things like throwing rocks at the freeway (OMFG WTF!) and how other people have been hit with rocks, their cars have been hit with rocks, etc but that no one has had their tires slashed or windows hit in on purpose. ANd while he was outside talking to me neighbors I'd never even seen before had come out to inform me that it's either happened to them, one of their roommates or someone they know in the neighborhood. Which, in some twisted way, made me feel better that nothing specifically about me made me a target, other than the fact that i was a person with my back to them.  in fact one of my neighbors walked by and said "it's those kids again, isn't it?" another older neighbor told me he always takes pictures of the kids when this stuff happens. So, in an extremely weird way, I've learned that there are people in the neighborhood who've gone through what I went through and who are keeping an eye out.

So i feel better about the whole thing but I'm still angry. Sure these kids are young and doing what most kids do (it's not just a "ghetto" (or in my case, non-ghetto) neighborhood kids thing- in the waterfront of Hampton just last week an older man was pulled off his bike by a bunch of kids who stole his bike) when they're young and bored. It's nice outside, you want to get away from your parents or whatever and there's nothing else to do. The officer said that these kids just end up daring each other to see how far they can push it before they get caught. 

What aggravates me is that this has obviously been a problem in our neighborhood for quite some time and there's only so much police officers can do so what is the solution? I'm going to write my neighborhood association this weekend because there's gotta be something that can be done about all the young kids here having too much free time and nothing to do.  In my experience, especially when you live in the city where there aren't lots of forests to go play in or areas where there isn't traffic, if kids are bored, they get into trouble. And all it takes is one person getting really hurt (like a baby or a child) or someone's car getting messed up for a person to turn on these kids and the situation get violent. The officer informed me that some people have already gotten into heated altercations with the kids- what if next time it's not with a 24 year old girl but someone who has a lot more anger and ability to be physically harmful? these kids have no idea what kind of danger they're putting everyone, including themselves, in when they chuck a rock at someone.

and maybe it seems not as big of a deal because they're only kids. but more and more studies are showing that violent children can often grow up to be violent adults. and if they don't get a reality check now, who's to say that a game of "dare you to throw a rock" won't eventually turn into "dare you to beat that guy up"? if neighborhoods aren't able to look out for the welfare of EVERYONE in them, including those who are causing the problems, then the future is looking pretty bleak.

EDITOR'S NOTE: since telling my friend who lives two doors down about my encounter she told me about what happened to her two weekends ago:

She (U) and her friend E were walking back to our building from the metro and these kids were following them, spitting at them and cursing at them (mostly "you ugly (which neither are) fat (which neither are at all!) bitches (again which neither are)"). U and E continued to ignore them and kept walking, until, that is, one of the kids came up behind U and started hitting her. She said he and his friends looked to be about 8 years old and she just turned around and said "what makes you think that you are allowed to touch me? why do you think you have the right to touch me?" she explained to the kid that if he did not back away she was going to call the police.  He backed away but all the way home the kids continued to follow them and shout degrading things.  Could it be the same kids? who knows. but the kids in our neighborhood have clearly started to escalate the physical nature of their "pranks" and all it is doing is making me angry and frustrated.