Reports from the Border of O-Town

Because we live on the corner across from a small playground next to a youth center that mainly caters to African American teens, and we are only four blocks from the border of Oakland, lately, when I leave my house with my two children for the day's events, a car will screech to a halt and a white, confident friendly mother hustles up to me saying with apologetic overtone, "Excuse me, excuse me, could I ask you a question?" "Of course," I say.  But by now I know exactly what the question is as this has happened five times in the three weeks I have lived here.   The question is a hopeful desire for me to affirm that if they buy a home in the area, on the street, because the price is right and wow, isn't the neighborhood so precious, that they will not be terrorized by some upheaval of racism prompted by their contribution to the gentrification of the area.

Now...   I wonder if I should tell them that I think the seemingly innocent basketball games played at the youth center are really a cover for the meetings of the Black Panther Teens for a White-Free neighborhood group that meet below in the basement, plotting their murderous plan to take out all yuppies buying up all the overpriced $700,000 homes that no one in this African American community (or me too frankly) can afford.

Or... I wonder if I should tell them that African-American young people are not smoking pot in their PMP-600s outside my daughter's bedroom window because they are hardly that covert.  They are smoking joints on the street, right on MLK Boulevard, while looking to see if any cops are coming because that's what dumb teens, white, black, Asian or what-have-you-in-your-melting pot city high school, do.  It's fun to almost get caught smoking pot when you are 16.

I also wonder if I should tell them about the white butch schizophrenic that walks past by my house at least three times a day who I don't fear or mind because she has taken to calling me the "pretty lady with the adorable kids".  (I will take a compliment wherever I can get it.)

When I learn they have children my daughter's age, and are available for play dates, I really want them to move in!  So I save my sarcasm for the blog and punch the mom's number into my cell phone.   There is a warm friendly smell in the air, as the youth center preps an afternoon BBQ.  Yeah right, we all know that it's a fundraiser to buy AK-47s...but shhhh, no one is telling.