The more time I spend living in DC, the more I realize how great the chasms between abstract liberal class-consciousness and actual practical realities of living in DC are.
Case in point: I was just setting out at around 8:30 pm last night when I heard a succession of gunshots, or “fireworks,” as a roommate likes to call them. Police cars–four of them–flashed through the streets around my home within a couple of minutes. I then carried on to the 9:30 club, watched the Scottish folk-rock band I had gone to see, and chatted with a friend about music venues in Los Angeles. From the laptop screen to the office to the music club, modern urban living allows one to be hyper-conscious yet remarkably oblivious to the plight of his neighborhood, to taking in knowledge on one’s own terms, and through one’s own RSS feeds/labor.
Living in Shaw, I’ve become used to living with many things that would have seemed almost unimaginable in former locales. Homelessness, increased noise, steady traffic along Rhode Island and down 7th, and, almost without question, some sort of police presence. I can’t say I was completely prepared for the adjustment; my move into the city was driven primarily by a desire to escape what I felt to be the alienation and plastic-tasting cultural dirge of the suburbs than it was a desire to bathe in youthful class guilt. But since moving in, over the months and more often through word of mouth or the blogosphere (which is just virtualized word of mouth), I’ve absorbed several valuable life lessons and ideas that neither the lectern nor the text book could provide nearly as well:
1. Every incoming publicly elected official should be required to spend some time in the poorest district of their constituency: Ideally, this would involve living in the neighborhood for at least one month, visiting community centers, talking to folks outside 7-Eleven on Sunday afternoons…
2. No, you don’t know what it feels like to be somebody else, but that shouldn’t stop you from trying to understand, more than your ignorant “If only Blue people acted more like Purple people,” or “Those people are all lazy, self-victimizing so-and-so” commentators ever will from their dinner table.
3. People won’t think better of you, no matter how fully you live out a pseudo-Buddhist, one-world worldview: this probably goes as well for developing world back-packing as it does for your own block. Class resentment exists, culture matters, and it takes a long time go from toleration to harmonious co-existence.
4. Hope is the piston of the American Dream: the journey won’t kick into gear without solid factory work to begin with.
I wish more successful folks in the business community saw the dream within a broader brush stroke than that commonly associated with Wall Street culture. “Greed is good” is so passé. All that capital, all that ability, still being thrown about like raccoons in a winter pantry. What makes humanity so thoroughly compelling is our ability to fulfill higher modes of living: beyond the television, beyond wanting a snazzier car than Jim, always a little beyond our current comfort zone.
“Greed is good; social capitalism is better,” should be our generation’s call card. Just like an online personals profile, except regarding civic consciousness.
January 25, 2007 at 3:49 pm
Great articulation of feelings I’ve had but haven’t been able to get out so succinctly.
#3 is a tough one for people to understand. It’s hard to get over that hump that as much as we want to be seen by individuals we are always to a greater or lesser extent implicated by our class, race, culture. Which is why #2 is so damn important.
January 26, 2007 at 2:16 am
[…] Fireworks or Gunshots: self-delusion and lessons learned. A Shaw Thing writes about the reality of living in the District. An excerpt: The more time I spend living in DC, the more I realize how great the chasms between abstract liberal class-consciousness and actual practical realities of living in DC are. Case in point: I was just setting out at around 8:30 pm last night when I heard a succession of gunshots, or “fireworks,” as a roommate likes to call them. […]
January 26, 2007 at 2:55 pm
well-written, sensitive piece. i wish more new ( and, for that matter, old comers) comers looked at the joys and contradictions of life in america these days.
hang in there.
January 26, 2007 at 9:19 pm
I don’t really mean to be critical, but to me it’s not at all clear how living in Shaw connects to the lessons you list.
January 30, 2007 at 4:33 am
I came here reading up on the crime spree in Shaw. It seems to me that you are very wrapped up in all things race, gentrification, underpriviledged African Americans vs. White people with the means to live in Shaw.
Can you ever write w/o reflecting on something that’s so cliche? Seriously, it’s pathetic to read all about your issues.
January 30, 2007 at 8:53 pm
Please keep writing. Don’t let a few critics keep you from expressing what you’re feeling in response to the things that are happening in Shaw. Your blog and your views are a valuable addition to the ongoing discussion here in Shaw.
Cheers.
February 1, 2007 at 3:30 pm
congrats darling you made the Express today!
August 2, 2007 at 2:33 am
I’m sitting on my couch wondering, are those sounds fireworks or gunshots? I googled just that and landed on your blog. Thanks for your comments. Seems I’m not the only one thinking those thoughts…