Why we millennials can't afford to be colorblind

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I have had black neighbors in the past. One, who lived in an apartment above mine, had been the victim of a crime when his car had been stolen. Not one of these black neighbors had ever been in trouble with the law, as far as I knew.

It may be worth your while to take a "trust but verify" sort of approach.

In some areas the local culture will expect you to socialize at least a little. This sucks but is true, and letting your neighbors get to know you can have real benefits.

Where i live, it doesn't matter. The crime rate is vanishingly low compared to many urban areas.

Naturally there are a lot of mormons here in the heart of mormonville. I had a coworker once who was a missionary for 2 years in Newark New Jersey.

Missionaries move from area to area. One area they were in for five or six months, the church provided a small house for them to live in. They were told that from 6pm to 7pm they needed to be on the porch.

He and his companion (mormon missionaries are always in pairs) tried to stick to that rule, and they met and got to know everyone in the neighborhood. They never had any problems with crime.

After he moved to another area, the missionaries who moved into that house thought that rule was silly, and didn't do it. People broke into the house and stole their s**t. Frequently.

Another example.

A friend of mine lives in a suburb of San Antonio, Texas. It was a nice enough neighborhood when he bought the house but it sort of degraded over time.

When his daughters were young, he realized that some of the guys down the street were dealing drugs. They also spent a lot of time working on cars and making things with steel. They were good at it.

He made a deal. "I sometimes need something welded, or work done on my car. I will bring it to you. I'll pay whatever you ask. You NEVER offer drugs to my girls. Nobody offers drugs to my girls. And i never drop a dime on you. Deal?"

They agreed.

A few years later, there was some gun play down the street. The cops came by. He told the cops he didn't hear or see anything, didn't know anything about those guys.

And nobody ever offered drugs to his girls.

I have talked to 'african american' individuals who hate the term....because they weren't born in africa, and don't even know much about the place and prefer the term black. I also once remember in class at school once a white girl said she was african american and someones all like 'but you aren't black' well turns out she was from South africa...so born in Africa, moved to united states but of white decent. Also a lot seem to dislike people tiptoeing around it, and trying to hard to not offend the 'black' person in the room cause they just want to be seen as any other person.

It is kind of funny because its just as likely a more white person could be a gang member....as if gangs are solely a product of minority races. If you saw someone of say russian decent would you think that? probably not but there are active gangs of them as well, active gangs of Hispanics so it is strange people associate black specifically with being a gang member. And what about all the stuff with the Italian mafia/gangs or whatever that have caused mayhem historically?

I've lived in the city my whole life, have had neighbours of every race. Can honestly say it is a crap shoot, individually there are good and bad people of every shade and shape. Now I wouldn't go move into the hardcore ghetto but that's not racist, that's just common sense. I wouldn't want to move anywhere where you stand out that much.

When I was in the Army I had a black drill instructor at advanced training in Texas, and I would label this guy as having the most integrity of any person I ever met. Unfortunately, when I was there, some racists dumped paint on his car, and wrote racists things. It made me sick.

In the DC area, you can find "black communities" where each household is making 150k+ on average, and those will be decent. However, in Michigan, we have many, many areas of poor blacks and poor whites.

But poverty hardly makes you a bad person.
Very disgusting that they did that to your drill instructor. Did they ever catch the perp?

Yeah, you'd figure that vandalizing an instructor's car would be grounds for discipline.