A Matter of Perception

Last night, I attended my neighborhood association meeting. We were presented with a series of questions and asked for our opinions on them. The first question was “What do you like about the La Rez Neighborhood?” My first response was the sense of community here. While I have said many times that this is the worst neighborhood I have ever lived in (because of the uncontrolled crime), it is also the best because of the genuine neighborliness of many people here. Several others at the meeting echoed my sentiments on this. One man said that the neighborhood was very quiet, and I had to control my laughter.

The next question was “What do people outside of this neighborhood think of La Rez, and where do they get those perceptions?” All of the answers given here were negative and included dangerous, poor, and the people who live there don’t care about it. The reasons given for these perceptions included rumors, the news media, and reality. All of these answers came from people other than myself. There seemed to be a schism of sorts between those who think this neighborhood is really a dangerous place and those who simply think it is being unfairly maligned. I fall squarely in the first camp, while the man who earlier commented that it was quiet seemed to fall in the second.

When the moderator pushed us to give some positive perceptions, not a single person in the group had anything to say. That is to say, we all felt that outsiders all thought this was a bad neighborhood. The “quiet” man went on to talk about how the newspaper had published a story about someone who said they will not travel through this part of the city without carrying their gun with them. He pointed to this as an example of how the media unfairly biases people’s opinions.

The third question was “What will it take to make people from outside of this neighborhood want to live here?” Again, the issue of crime vs. just the perception of crime came up, and it was beginning to appear that the “quiet” man and I were living in two completely different neighborhoods. After the formal business was concluded, I introduced myself to the quiet man and we talked for a few minutes. I told him some of the reasons for my comments, including having my home fire-bombed by drug dealers. He just smiled and said “I’m from Baltimore.”

Okay, I know when I’ve been beat, and my stories probably pale in comparison to his own. So I suppose that if we are to use Baltimore, Detroit or Gary as the standard, then Fort Wayne really doesn’t have a problem with crime. Of course, the question about how outsiders perceive this neighborhood was, I believe, referring to people who live in other parts of this city and surrounding areas. And compared to most other neighborhoods in this city, mine has a very serious problem with crime.

When drug dealers openly sell and smoke their crack cocaine on the streets here, we have a problem. And when a drug dispute causes a man to have gasoline thrown in his face, to be lit on fire, and then have a screwdriver plunged into his head, we have a problem. And when a man walking through this neighborhood declines to buy drugs from the gang on the corner, is then told “Then get your punk ass off their block”, and is then shot and nearly killed for his transgression, we have a problem. And when these drug dealers tell the police to their faces “We ain’t afraid of you, when were out on the corner we’re ready to die, we’re soldiers.”, we have a problem. And when a law-abiding citizen has Molotov cocktails thrown at his house for asking the drug dealers to stay off his property, and then the police department laughs about this and tells the citizen he should just calm down and quit making noise, we have an extremely serious problem.

But of course, that’s just my own perception of the matter. It’s not like people are firing shots into the police parking lot (anymore). And the number of people being shot while standing right across the street from the police department is extremely low in the past couple of months. I actually know of several houses on my block which have never had a problem with drug dealers trespassing there (usually because those houses are owned/rented by dug dealers who choose to sell away from their house.)

A prominent member of the local news media was in attendance as a trustee of the church where the neighborhood association meeting was held last night. The church was located only a block away from my house. He did not take part in the discussions, other than giving a brief introduction, but I couldn’t help but wonder what his perceptions of this neighborhood were. He doesn’t live here, and most of his time here is probably spent among large groups of other church-goers or safely tucked inside his fortress rather than standing alone on the street. He didn’t offer his opinion on this, but something tells me that as a member of the established media he would be inclined to tow the City’s official line of propaganda by saying the reality is far better than the perception. Of course, the fact that his own church and parking lot lies protected behind a six foot steel barricade leaves me inclined to think that he really knows the truth about this neighborhood.

This meeting brought up another difference of opinion between certain groups of people - those who participate in the system and those who don’t. The neighborhood association represents the most basic level of governance. All of the constituents are within walking distance of each other, and even the official leaders are far more likely to be accessible than any one else in government. And, we are told by the associations themselves, “The best way for the City to hear you is for you to channel your message through the associations.” So, what possible reason could a citizen have for not belonging to such an association?

That very question is one that is asked frequently by the leaders of these groups as well as those higher up in the chain. I am not an insider, and those who are usually are too clever to reveal their true thoughts on the matter, but I get the impression that those who don’t participate in their associations are largely written off by the city. Their impression seems to be that those who don’t participate really don’t care and therefore do not matter. And I am sure that with some that is the case.

Of course, there is another perspective. It comes from the person who does attend and is asked such ridiculous questions as “If you had an endless pot of money, what would you do for this neighborhood?” And when people don’t give the “correct” answers to the questions, they are then prompted by those running the meeting to give better answers, just after those very people stated that they do not want to prompt the group in any specific direction. And this perception comes from the person who at the end of the meeting asks “When will all these ideas we gave you be implemented?”, and is given a reply of a pause, followed by a muted laugh, followed by the vague suggestion of “You’ll have to come to the future meetings to find that out.”

This perspective sees these meetings as largely a waste of time - not in theory, but in practice. The idea of neighbors associating to decide what they need from their government, followed by that government then listening and implementing these ideas, or at least giving a reasonable response as to why they can’t be implemented, is a good one. The City sees the large number of people who do not attend as evidence that the people just don’t care. And the people who do attend often come to the realization that the City usually does not hold up it’s end of the bargain by truly listening and honestly engaging them. About the only time a citizen’s input really is listened to is when it supports the predetermined plans of the City.

I think it’s really nice that the City has installed antique lights and brick paved sidewalk ramps in my neighborhood, and I think the neighborhood associations are very effective at getting these kinds of things (the minor details) implemented. But when it comes to things that really matter, like dealing with criminally controlled streets and an incompetent police department, they really don’t have much usefulness. I think those who run these associations realize that issues this big are decided at a level far above their heads, and any input from a few individual citizen’s will probably have very little impact upon them. But hey, that’s just my perception.