Earlier quoted context omitted.
"I know you are, but what am I?" Is your argument?
You are doing a wonderful job of letting someone be wrong on the internet.
Please don't take HN threads into flamewar.
Walking America: Washington, DC (Anacostia and Alexandria)
11–20 of 43 posts
Re: Walking America: Washington, DC (Anacostia and Alexandria)
#12The only uptight, hall-monitor-like people I know here in Alexandria are the few Republicans who have a chip on their shoulder about being Republican. Maybe taking a single walk through a town doesn't give one the insight one thinks it does.
I hope the piece wasn't a total turn-off for you. "Uptight" is a subjective judgment and a comparative judgment but I think the author is hitting on something real - though different people might perceive or phrase it in different ways.
Do you think Alexandria might feel uptight compared to Anacostia and Benning Road? The author is partly expressing a comparative judgment - that's kind of the point, going for a walk in a much poorer black neighborhood vs strolling past the perimeter of Old Town Alexandria.
One expression of what I might call "uptightness" that you might hear from DC area residents is an overt fear of even driving through certain DC neighborhoods (or maybe even Southeast as a whole!), as if they were active war zones and not just a place where the signs of low social maintenance and low-income lives of black people are unmistakably visible. It makes sense, the crime stats are worse; most people have no reason to visit these neighborhoods and see what they're like; everyone has heard stories about how bad DC was decades ago and these neighborhoods hold the bad reputation.
In my opinion, people being "uptight" in this way is a mix of "common sense" (maybe it doesn't reflect reality, but if people act like it does they really pay no price) and "hysteria" (other people told me I ought to be extremely afraid, so I will be). [scare quotes added to emphasize that these are my subjective judgments and, imo, inescapably subjective.]
Re: Walking America: Washington, DC (Anacostia and Alexandria)
#13Re: Walking America: Washington, DC (Anacostia and Alexandria)
#14I do not remember where I read it, but looking at it from the outside, I always have to think back on the quote: "Republicans don't like people who are different and want them to be somewhere else. Democrats don't like people who are different and want them to be someone else."
Which is more humane?
Re: Walking America: Washington, DC (Anacostia and Alexandria)
#15DC is a fantastic place to walk, especially in the spring and fall. I lived in a crystal city apartment for a year , it has a fun restaurant area on 23rd. Amazon is setting up there, it has subway and train access. They are building a pedestrian walkway to the airport, it has a great future. You are a mile from the airport but not much noise as they come over the river.
Re: Walking America: Washington, DC (Anacostia and Alexandria)
#16> An in your face “be saved or suffer” religiosity. One that deeply informs the lives and realities of the residents, in a way that makes elites uncomfortable
When government social services are ineffective or had broken down, the little churches in communities like that is often the only thing which keeps the community together. Family issues, an old person is sick and needs meals brought home, a place to meet.
Yeah it makes the people across the river pretty uncomfortable. They like to have their abstract model of a poor victim they support but that often doesn’t jive with reality. Most of them wouldn’t even dare walk through that neighborhood.
Re: Walking America: Washington, DC (Anacostia and Alexandria)
#17I’m one of the author’s “front row” people who lives in northwest DC (in Ward 1). He’s not inaccurate with his observations, but the article is also reductive, superficial, and exhibitionist. There are white upper middle class elites who live here for years inside a bubble, but the far more interesting and rewarding life here in the District is when you integrate more. That’s a story of DC that never gets told, unfortunately.
Re: Walking America: Washington, DC (Anacostia and Alexandria)
#18> An in your face “be saved or suffer” religiosity. One that deeply informs the lives and realities of the residents, in a way that makes elites uncomfortable When government social services are ineffective or had broken down, the little churches in communities like that is often the only thing which keeps the community together. Family issues, an old person is sick and needs meals brought home, a place to meet. Yeah…
Do you live here? Or are you just accepting your own bias and the author’s two days of walking around as all there is to know about DC?
Re: Walking America: Washington, DC (Anacostia and Alexandria)
#19> An in your face “be saved or suffer” religiosity. One that deeply informs the lives and realities of the residents, in a way that makes elites uncomfortable When government social services are ineffective or had broken down, the little churches in communities like that is often the only thing which keeps the community together. Family issues, an old person is sick and needs meals brought home, a place to meet. Yeah…
Do you live here? Or are you just accepting your own bias and the author’s two days of walking around as all there is to know about DC?
> Do you live here?
Would rather not share my address. But, yes, I am familiar with the area.
> Or are you just accepting your own bias
Not sure how to parse that exactly. Mind rephrasing a bit. In general, to be a better person, should one reject their biases or accept them?
Re: Walking America: Washington, DC (Anacostia and Alexandria)
#20He walked within a hundred feet of my old apartment so I'll happily use my local card to call absolute gibberish on this entire thing. I really have no idea what he was babbling about or why he's so confident in that weird reductive lens he views through.