[Editor’s Note: This month’s Philadelphia Magazine story, “Being White in Philly,” has been widely criticized in the city. West Philadelphia native Jocelyn Degroot-Lutzner, 22, grew up on 49th Street. She has her own thoughts about growing up in a multiracial community. This was originally posted on her company’s website IdiomsFashion.com. She gave us permission to re-post it here.]
As a 09’ graduate of Central High School, “Temple’s biggest district feeder,” I can only hope that my shock towards Robert Huber’s recent article for Philadelphia Magazine reciprocated similar feelings from my fellow Central grads (most of whom are probably neighbors of his son). As I sat reading the article on my lunch break at my New York City internship for an online magazine, I couldn’t help but lose my appetite as I felt my face grow red. His sweeping generalizations, seemingly one-sided research and the description of the “dance” he does at Wawa made me clench my fists in pain.
I am a 22-year-old, white, female, Jewish, middle class, West Philadelphia native. I grew up in an area once referred to as West Philadelphia, but may only be known to you now as its re-branded name of Cedar Park or University City. My mother has occupied the same house in West Philly for over 30 years. Both of my parents work from home in their third floor offices.
During an interview I once had with the president of Starr Restaurants for a job as a hostess, I remember telling him that I grew up in West Philadelphia. He questioned whether my parents were hippies, I responded “no.” I never questioned as to why my parents choose to raise my younger brother and I in our neighborhood. Why would I question something that was normal to me?
I attended a few different public schools as well as one private school: Wilson School for Montessori and kindergarten; Powel Elementary School for 1st-4th grade; Girard Academic Music Program for 5th grade; Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander University of Pennsylvania Partnership School for 6th-8th grade; Friends Select School for 9th; and Central High School for 10th-graduation.
I grew up with block parties, attended the University City Swim Club in the summer and worked at various jobs in my neighborhood. I taught swimming at the West Philly YMCA, sold movie tickets at the movie theater formerly known as The Bridge, sold overpriced fashions to Penn students at the West Philadelphia Urban Outfitters, and then sold those same Penn students drinks and Ethiopian food at Gojjo’s Ethiopian Restaurant back on Baltimore Ave.
Has race been a part of my life? Yes, without a doubt! Walking around West Philly I’ve been called every moniker for “white girl” that you could (or couldn’t) think of: Snow Bunny, White Chocolate and Britney Spears to name a few. I have also ventured downtown and been inappropriately hit on by white men older than my father. What did I learn from those experiences? Definitely not that one man is more respectful to young women than any other.
I remember leaving my first day of work at Urban Outfitters, we stood at the front door and emptied our pockets and personal bags as the managers checked us for any missing Urban Outfitters merchandise. While checking we were told whom we should be keeping an eye on for stealing. Race was never stated outright, was it inferred? Definitely. What was stated outright was that we should not forget to keep an eye on the well-to-do looking Penn students; they had a long history of being petty thieves at Urban Outfitters, even with daddy and mommy’s money in their wallets.
I grew up on 49th street and have a long relationship with University of Pennsylvania students. In 4th grade I had a “Penn Pal”, very literally. We exchanged letters and toured the university at the end of our school year. I attended a University of Pennsylvania Partnership public elementary school, not as big of a relationship with Penn as you might think. I’ve sold them movie ticket after movie ticket, drink after drink and watched them get caught stealing at my prior job.
I would say, overall, we have a somewhat tension fueled relationship and I say this even knowing a handful of friends that currently attend the university. Once I had a discussion with Angela Leonardo, a close childhood friend who will be graduating from Penn this May, she was reminiscing on her freshmen orientation,
I was in the tour group and near the end one of the kids asked if it was true that you shouldn’t ever go past 42nd street, and the tour guide was like, yeah I’m not sure…I haven’t ever been out there, I think it’s probably best not to… people have definitely been confused over the years when I tell them I grew up at 49th street. It was also impossible to get most of my friends to come over for dinner or hangouts.
My mother remembers twenty years ago when she was getting her masters from The Wharton School, the school’s car service would drop her off a block away from our house, refusing to go past 48th street. They also sent her a letter, suggesting she should not live past 46th street.
Has race been a part of my life? Again, I say yes! As an 11th grader I participated in Operation Understanding, it was a life changing experience for Philadelphian African American and Jewish 11th graders to learn “each others histories and cultures to effectively lead the communities of Philadelphia and beyond to a greater understanding of diversity and acceptance.” We traveled to Senegal and Israel and exchanged experiences that challenged each of us to see differently. Race was discussed daily, if not hourly.
I want to quickly discuss drugs, since it seemed to be such an important factor of Huber’s article. As a white person, more often than not I was the minority in my various schools. Drugs did not become an evident part of my classmate’s lives until I attended private school as a high school freshmen. Suddenly, people where being expelled for selling drugs or doing them on school grounds. Besides my current university, the private school I attended as a 9th grader, had the largest proportion of white students compared to other race and ethnicities and the white students were the ones doing drugs.
If I had one hope for the day I choose to begin to raise a family, it is that my children are blessed to have such a well-rounded experience of their community and our world. Hopefully it can be similar to the one I feel so lucky to have grown up in. I hope they get to experience sledding on trashcan lids in Clark Park, eating chicken patties at Brown Sugar on 52nd street, samosa’s at International Food & Spices, pretending to be models at the Kingsessing Recreation Center’s free after school programs, teaching 3-year-olds to swim at the West Philly YMCA, fighting for Philadelphia public school students at the Philadelphia Student Union office on 50th and Baltimore, and making friends that are Black, White, Asian, Hispanic (etc.). I don’t want to raise my children “color-blind” – they would miss so many beautiful things.
March 13th, 2013 at 10:07 am
I didn’t really get the point of the article in Philadelphia Magazine – thought it was poorly written, but not racist… and I don’t really get the point of this one either.
March 13th, 2013 at 10:21 am
It wasn’t racist. Just very divisive and highly generalized. I don’t remember seeing the word ‘racist'( I could be wrong). I think the article highlighted that embracing differences and not looking at someone’s environment or skin color, clothes or economic status and labeling them is what’s important. I know firsthand what it feels like to be stared at, avoided and judged means.
March 13th, 2013 at 10:30 am
I thought the Philly Mag article was more ignorant than racist, and that Jocelyn’s response was thoughtful, truthful and spot on.
March 13th, 2013 at 10:36 am
Thanks for the autobiographical account of your affluent hipster life. That’s so cool about your mother’s masters degree from Wharton. You’re so down. Please try to finish your article, instead of some petty tirade about white kids doing drugs. The Philadelphia Magazine’s article wasn’t very poignant, and neither is your response.
BTW – Did you check out the new Thome Yorke album?
March 13th, 2013 at 10:59 am
I am taken aback by the nasty tone of andrw’s post. I really enjoyed reading Jocelyn’s post for the sheer love of the neighborhood that she expressed.
March 13th, 2013 at 11:22 am
Just ignore trolls like that. They have nothing better to do than to bully on the internet.
Great post Jocelyn!
March 13th, 2013 at 11:37 am
Hmmm.. rich white kids living in West Philly is super common. Their Penn grad parents settling here, also very common. To have the “white” story of West Philly told by this incredibly privileged UPPER-middleclass (I know your parents, hon. Your family is loaded) very young girl is insulting.
While she was happy to partake of the culture in this neighborhood growing up, she was sheltered and cushioned with the security of a beautiful home and plenty of money to afford a posh lifestyle by any city’s standards. This was more a screed of “being white is haaaaard, even though I went to the best schools and had my pick of jobs and hobbies that are not accessible to almost all the other kids in West Philly..”
I mean, honestly, she practically says “Well, I have friends of color too!” Ugh. Typical.
Why didn’t you talk to a variety of people who have EARNED their way in this neighborhood, who struggled and built a life for themselves here, and actually overcame challenges…and not some princess fashionista hipster who grew up in a microcosm that happened to be located in West Philly?
March 13th, 2013 at 11:48 am
Hey, Andrw, lighten up. Everyone is allowed to speak his/her truth, and this is Jocelyn’s. She wasn’t name-dropping Wharton, she was giving the context needed to make her point about what Penn’s driver, and whoever wrote that letter, said about going West of 46th st.
Do you remember being 22? Do you remember reading something in the media and feeling compelled to write a piece in response to it? Do you remember not being antagonistic to a stranger on the internet just b/c you’re having a bad day?
March 13th, 2013 at 11:49 am
Jocelyn, your post deserved better responses than several of the previous comments. Well done.
March 13th, 2013 at 11:55 am
I didn’t get the sense Jocelyn was attempting to tell anyone’s story (and certainly not “the “white” story of West Philly”) other than her own. Christ, people can’t tell their own stories anymore?
If your beef is with West Philly Local for taking her story and presenting it as “the white story” (I don’t agree with that reading of it, btw, but maybe you do) then take it up with them, not the author of the piece, who put it on her own website.
March 13th, 2013 at 12:35 pm
Littlebird, I agree that acknowledging economic and race privilege is really important. Not enough white people do it. However…although she could have been more explicit, Joceyln did point out her own race privilege (and if she was a part of the Philadelphia Student Union, I guarantee that she has thought a lot about it). Attacking her anonymously is cowardly and more importantly,counterproductive. If conversations about race and class in West Philly are ever going to lead to justice, they need to start with engagement not baseless attacks.
Joceyln, I got ten years on you, but I grew up white in West Philly too and I want to thank you for writing this piece. People like you, who believe in our neighborhood, give me hope that we can overcome the narrow and depressing point of view detailed in the original Philadelphia magazine piece.
March 13th, 2013 at 12:36 pm
Nice work.
March 13th, 2013 at 12:47 pm
Of course we were not trying to represent Jocelyn’s story as “the” story of being white in the city. She offered a perspective in another venue (her own website, a few days ago) that we thought was interesting and we thought you all might too. It’s simply reposted from her site. We didn’t go out looking for what it meant to be white in Philly. That would be silly.
Jocelyn provides HER perspective. If you don’t find her perspective to be an “authentic” voice of the neighborhood, well then that is YOUR perspective. We think both are valuable.
March 13th, 2013 at 12:51 pm
I believe the main point of Jocelyn’s post is that the Philadelphia Magazine story, “Being White in Philly,” cannot and does not represent the opinions of all white people who live in Philly.
March 13th, 2013 at 12:57 pm
Little Bird: I don’t think the point of this piece was at all to say that “being white is hard” (she talks about being called “White Chocolate” as a segue to the point that men of all backgrounds catcall/harass, that it’s not a feature of being targeted for your whiteness). Nor do I think she glossed over the fact that she obviously comes from some privilege (acknowledging that your mother went to Wharton isn’t name-dropping– it’s being honest about your position). Is the paean to a diverse upbringing a little saccharine? Sure. But at least it’s better to acknowledge that race is a present force in our society than it is to pretend that race doesn’t matter.
However, as another young white woman living in West Philly (you could call me a hipster, even), I do wish that the tone of this piece would have been a little less sunny. For me, the story of being white in West Philly, especially young and white and a relatively new resident at that, is undergirded with an awareness of continued, dire racial injustice. For example, at least Urban Outfitters isn’t telling its associates to only suspiciously follow the black patrons around… but, jesus, isn’t it basically the definition of white privilege to have to overtly remind people that white folks can be criminals too? I found that anecdote very disturbing.
In addition, I feel that if you come from a position of privilege whether it’s racial, economic, or a combination of the two, simply appreciating/loving this neighborhood is not enough. By living in this neighborhood and looking like I do, I am complicit in a process of gentrification whether I want to be or not. I (literally) make poverty level wages, so I’m not exactly shopping at Mariposa. But unfairly and unjustly white rich folks will see my presence as evidence that the neighborhood is “improving,” and will drive up the cost of living in this neighborhood even more. Because of that, I owe my vote, my voice, and any time I can muster to the long-time residents of this community. One has to actively try and offset the negative impact one’s privilege can have on one’s neighbors. This is not white guilt; it’s trying to clean up a mess you’ve accidentally made.
At any rate, I think that Jocelyn’s piece is a far better contribution to the complicated conversation about race in this city than that obnoxious Philly Mag bit. Any individual story cannot possibly grasp the full picture of this neighborhood, which is why it’s important for us to share our views, listen to others, and fill in our blind spots.
March 13th, 2013 at 2:47 pm
I struggled to find interest in the Philadelphia Mag article. It was dull and did not represent a reality that I am familiar with. Reading this one was less dull but mainly because it was hard to read. I don’t necessarily agree with all the “negative” sentiment but fail to see the point of the story about a rich kid touting her pedigree in one sentence and her West Philly cred in the next. [Is there a name-brand school in Philly that you did not attend?] Other commenters can bash the critics (including me) all they want but the truth is this-You are out of touch, kid.
March 13th, 2013 at 3:46 pm
@Happy Curmudgeon: “a rich kid touting her pedigree in one sentence and her West Philly cred in the next” … EXACTLY. You nailed it!
March 13th, 2013 at 4:20 pm
My definition of hipster: Somebody who is quite different from myself, and, oddly, comfortable with himself.
March 13th, 2013 at 4:33 pm
To everyone bashing her as being “out of touch” or not an authentic west philly resident. Who IS an authentic west philly resident? Because the way it sounds there is some homogenized experience that perfectly sums up living in west philly and you all are aware of it.
Apparently it cant be someone who has moved to the neighborhood within the past 10 years because they havent been here long enough. Someone who has been here since the immmigration boom of the 80’s? The influx of american blacks in the 60s? The working class irish in the century before that? The native americans before that?
March 13th, 2013 at 4:47 pm
We can be so judgmental in this country if we suspect that someone didn’t start from 0 and work their way up with absolutely no help from others. What a ridiculous thread. What a ridiculous standard to hold someone to.
March 13th, 2013 at 5:26 pm
Congratulations to West Philly Local for being the first blog to re-post this before it goes viral.
March 13th, 2013 at 9:39 pm
I don’t think the responses are whether this person is an ‘authentic’ West Philly person. She claims to provide a real voice to this issue but actually makes some of the same critical faults that are made by the narrow voices in the magazine article. This is not the sound of a brave voice, this is the sound of guilt and privilege. Not point/counterpoint. More like point/similar point.
March 13th, 2013 at 10:03 pm
It’s a personal account – you can’t tell someone that their experience wasn’t valid. It is what it is cause it’s how that person experienced it. Thanks for telling your story.
March 13th, 2013 at 10:10 pm
@LittleBird – not everyone who lives in West Philly needs to be a certain “type” of person to be considered legit. Honestly, you really need to get over it. If you want everyone to live the same way, there are still some socialist societies out that’d be happy to have you. Last I checked, diversity comes in all forms – even financial.
March 13th, 2013 at 11:39 pm
@Anon Did you even read my comment? Or were you so sure of your perception that you simply skimmed in order to reply? I didn’t say anything indicating a desire for socialism or for a “type”. At all. I said Jocelyn is a highly privileged sheltered very young woman whose experiences do not remotely begin to represent even a miniscule percentage of West Philly’s population.
March 14th, 2013 at 12:51 am
Who says she has to represent anything? She’s just telling her story from her view. Stop making everything so political, geez.
March 14th, 2013 at 2:02 pm
The point of this article is valid: you cannot marginalize the experience of any group of people within this city, or anywhere else for that matter.
March 14th, 2013 at 3:25 pm
“a rich kid touting her pedigree in one sentence and her West Philly cred in the next”
Hey–things change. neighborhoods change. Some of WPhilly surrounds an Ivy League school and has lots of trees that some of CC doesn’t. No wonder people live here. Maybe having money and a ‘pedigree’ IS a West Philly thing now, if it wasn’t before. Time marches on.
March 15th, 2013 at 1:10 pm
My understanding is that West Philly has always had a moneyed class, whether you’re talking about the first people who built their country estates here (see the Woodlands) or some of the residents who moved here when it was a fashionable streetcar suburb.
So whether the idea is that working class people were here “first”, or that somehow the views of people we see as “privileged” are invalid, I just don’t see the argument.
January 17th, 2014 at 4:07 pm
You’re right. Mr. Clark, namesake of the infamous ‘Clark Park’ built many of the large Victorians that populate UCity/West Philadelphia in the late 1800’s. Before that, West Philadelphia, was farmland.
March 15th, 2013 at 3:01 pm
“I grew up in an area once referred to as West Philadelphia, but may only be known to you now as its re-branded name of Cedar Park or University City.”
Cedar Park, the actual park, at 49th and Baltimore has been a park with that name for over 100 years. Cedar Park Neighbors, the civic association serving the neighborhood surrounding the park has been a neighborhood organization chartered by the City of Philadelphia for over 50 years.
“University City” is indeed a more recent “rebranding” but unless the author of this piece is a centagenarian whose been locked in a closet since the early 1960’s there is absolutely nothing “new”about the “Cedar Park” neighborhood designation.
January 16th, 2014 at 11:45 am
Thanks Sean, you make your age quite obvious with this comment… You must still be learning how to use Google. Try typing, “cedar park Philadelphia” into your search engine of preference. Let me know what you come up with…
January 16th, 2014 at 7:55 pm
Jocelyn, I found your comment confusing, so I googled “cedar park Philadelphia” and found various sites that confirmed what Sean wrote and what I already knew. I guess I must be too old to simply glance at and misinterpret google headers. Ah, to be young again…
February 1st, 2014 at 3:13 am
First result,
“Cedar Park is a neighborhood of the West Philadelphia section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. ”
Oo to be old…
February 1st, 2014 at 5:09 pm
Ah, now I get it. It’s not that you can’t understand google results, it’s that you didn’t understand what Sean wrote. Thanks for clarifying.
January 17th, 2014 at 4:06 pm
The author is 22 as clearly stated in the article. She was speaking only from her personal perspective, and, not for an entire community.
March 15th, 2013 at 3:28 pm
Paul: You’re right. And I think the other half of the issue (and this moves away from the author’s piece) is that the money that came in (specifically Penn/Drexel) pushed many out of the cheapest places to live in WPhilly.
Cf. The Black Bottom.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Bottom,_Philadelphia
Then again, I’m middle class, no debt of any kind, no kids, good job and I got priced out of my own neighborhood. I thought about owning at some point, decided it wasn’t for me, and now can only afford to rent! *sad trombone*
March 15th, 2013 at 4:22 pm
How can the West Philly perspective of someone who’s lived in West Philly her whole life not be valid? Sure, she comes across as incredibly privledged, but facts are facts – she’s about as West Philly as they come.
March 16th, 2013 at 12:27 pm
Why are people so hostile to those who make and have more money? Most of these people worked hard to do so. Having money gets you more privileges. But doesn’t make you a better or worse family. Privileged can be taken in so many different ways. One can be privileged that they have a stable family life and not much money. Too many haters.
March 17th, 2013 at 9:29 am
We would be among those who are being called privileged. But we both grew up in lower middle class (at best) households. None of our parents went to college, but they valued education and made sure we went to college. We worked and borrowed our way through college and graduate school. Nobody paid our way..
We sacrificed to pay off our loans and buy our house (20 years ago). Now our hard work is paying off, finally, and all we hear and read is that we are too privileged to be part of this community. People should stop judging what they know nothing about.
January 17th, 2014 at 4:04 pm
Personally, I am grateful for neighbors such as yourself. I only wish we could find ways to share our common experiences with the less fortunate in the neighborhood.
March 17th, 2013 at 9:29 pm
Having lived in West Philly, UCity, Squirrel Hill, whatever the heck you like to call it, for the past 30 years; having raised a son here and struggled with schools both public and private without much privilege (though I do acknowledge what white privilege I do have), Jocelyn’s account rings true and a perceptive antidote to the ridiculous and insulting Philadelphia Magazine article. I really appreciate her writing it. So she has some privilege, so the f what? She is a dyed in the wool, legit resident of a multi racial, multi class community with an uncommon (but, as I see it, common among the born and bred) sensitivity to race and class – as we hoped many/most of our kids would have. Penn students, Penn profs and workers really are not the enemy – IF they are here with the intent to contribute, learn, and be a part of the mix. Our neighborhood is cool for this AND unusual as far as other neighborhood and parts of the country. That’s why I love living here! I hope her post DOES go viral. There’s a talk at the Constitution Center tomorrow night (March 18) at 6:30 about Race, in response to the article. Will it be productive? If people don’t try and shout others down with divisive insults (as the trollers here are trying to do) it could be interesting.
January 17th, 2014 at 4:03 pm
I’ve lived in several Philadelphia neighborhoods over the last 15 years and UCity/West Philly is my favorite of them all. #Proud 49th Street Resident
March 19th, 2013 at 4:50 pm
I did not grow up in Philly, never even been, however I am reading this out of curiosity. It seems to me that people in her position, I am guessing she is white based on her writing, are clueless on both sides of race relations. For example, I dare not say “this one time I hadn’t eaten all day” and pretend to have a clue what it is like to grow up in famine. Just because I had isolated incidents of hunger pains doesn’t give me any experience in growing up without food.
So too, her examples of these isolated times of being called “snow bunny”, or isolated times she was searched at some department store gives her zero experience in growing up as a minority where society, even country, as a whole has deep ingrained animosity against people of a particular race.
Put another way, she didn’t live her everyday life in a crux; she simply lived her everyday life, and remembers some random incidents that happen.
And I am again confused on her drugs comment. When I grew up in the long long ago, the white kids were the ones doing drugs, not because they were worse, but because they had the money. Drugs know no race, when you are addicted, either you have the money to do drugs, or you get it. The minority kids robbed, and dealed, in order to get money… which usually ended them up in prison. She didn’t have to tell me she was 22, because I could tell she was born after Reagan, or Bush Sr. They targeted minorities in their “War on Drugs”, cops patrolled the hoods, and ghettos as if those were the only place on Earth people were breaking the law. There are good humans, and there are bad humans everywhere, but if you target a specific subset, then what do you expect to get? The jails are filled in minorities, not whites. The social culture, perception, expectation, and stereotypes surrounding white Americans is very different, so much so articles about “Being White in ” sound like sound bites of American Pie saying “this one time, at band camp…” rather than an actual life experience.
January 17th, 2014 at 4:02 pm
Thank goodness you’ve never been to Philly.
March 19th, 2013 at 11:33 pm
Hey kofybean: you don’t have to guess she was white. The big clue is where she writes, “I’m … white.”
March 19th, 2013 at 11:36 pm
… and I’m having a hard time finding the place where she says, “Growing up white taught me what it’s like to grow up black,” but maybe I’m missing it.
March 20th, 2013 at 8:49 am
I’m much less concerned about the fancy “privileged” people who grew up and/or live in west Philly than I am about the investors from out of town who don’t live here and simply come in, do some poor-quality renovations, and then charge high rents to the people who have been priced out of their own neighborhoods.
Case in point, my house, where we’re currently undoing many, many “improvements” that were made by the former owner who lives in Mississippi. Who knows if he ever even set foot in Philly.
Not that gentrification isn’t a problem, but I’d much rather deal with someone who lives here and at least has some stake in the neighborhood, instead of some faceless investor who lives thousands of miles away.
March 20th, 2013 at 9:12 am
The writer makes the same mistakes the Philly Rag writer makes. Out of touch and doesn’t know it. She can write about her own experiences and disagree with the rag’s take on what is clearly prejudice but she is a textbook example of one who glorifies even her ‘negative’ experiences. There is no amount of ‘legitimacy’ that will give her what it takes to address her privilege. Been in West Phila for 30+ years? Fine, youre from West Philly. But-There is an amount of capital that comes with being white and she has it. She can share as much of her experience as she wants but it doesnt change that and there is no way around it.
I dont understand the point she is making with having her bags checked at Urban. Thats a store policy. Every employee gets checked when they leave. Does she read race into every mention of crime? Sounds like projection to me.
January 17th, 2014 at 4:00 pm
Curmudgeon, it seems you most certainly did miss “the point” of the article.
March 20th, 2013 at 11:08 am
>>>> “There is no amount of ‘legitimacy’ that will give her what it takes to address her privilege”
Isn’t that just another way to say, “shut up – it’s impossible for you to address whiteness because you are white”?
March 20th, 2013 at 1:08 pm
It would be nice to a read an article on what it’s like “being white”. However, it doesn’t help me if that article just points out random isolated incidents instead of giving a view of what the mindset had to be and what social situations were expected of them. It just turns into a “who’s got it worse” battle.
For instance, I don’t feel for rich people anymore than the poor, everyone has problems, but I don’t think a rich person’s problems are best illustrated by pointing to a few times they couldn’t afford something.
Hope that makes more sense.
March 20th, 2013 at 5:18 pm
After reading the first paragraph I had to stop and skipped to comments. You would think someone prefacing their published work with their education and internship could figure out where to put the apostrophe in a grad year. FFS.
idiotsfashion.
January 17th, 2014 at 3:59 pm
Where are your commas, eh?
March 21st, 2013 at 12:15 pm
@KB – your point makes sense in general, but I disagree that this particular piece is devolving into a “who’s got it worse” piece. It’s a bit rambling and unfocused (and as Bale points out, it has TYPOS IN IT which naturally renders it unworthy of the time and attention of serious people), but it falls short of the crimes of which some here are accusing it – namely, I don’t see the author trying to claim the mantle of victimhood or make a case that what she’s experiencing is “discrimination.”
That happens on the Rush Limbaugh show every day, in revolting fashion, and it’s happening in the Supreme Court as we speak (they’re reviewing the case of the poor little white girl who says she didn’t get into Texas A&M because of racial preferences, and they’ll probably rule in her favor), but I don’t see it happening here ….
March 25th, 2013 at 12:30 pm
Her point is that, despite those incidents (few and far between), race relations in her neighborhood were–by and large–constructive. This is in direct opposition to the portrait painted in the Philly Mag article.
Are we post-racial? Of course not. Are there great injustices being perpetuated (still)? You betcha.
The point is that, unlike the people in the Philly Mag piece, the author felt comfortable in her neighborhood and wasn’t looking over her shoulder for a black person to attack her. It’s a neighborhood that gets along well, and this white vs. black hostility is manufactured.
August 23rd, 2013 at 1:55 pm
49th St. (OUR LADY OF ANGELS NEIGHBORHOOD) once was nothing but italian immigrants some jewish and irish people.I grew up partially on 49th and thompson in the 80`s , 50th and lancaster also across from the C.B.M..We left that area and moved to Overbrook in the later 80`s not far from the old neighborhood then to Florida in 90.Nobody stayed in the 49th St. area it was getting way out of control with drugs and violence.
June 1st, 2016 at 12:38 pm
I thoroughly enjoyed reading her experience and point-of-view; but mainly her love for her neighborhood. I didn’t come off as negative but honest!