Black History Month 2014 in Baltimore is a busy, busy time. Every aspect of black life in this city is remembered and celebrated: Black schools. Black music. Black movies. Black churches. Black literature. Black clothing. Black politicians. Even black trains.
Then Tracey Halvorsen had to go and spoil it all: She wrote an article in 2014 about crime in Baltimore. How she and her white neighbors live in fear. And no one seems to care. Or worse, lots of people think it is normal. “Baltimore City, You Are Breaking My Heart,” is going viral for an on-line magazine called Medium.com. A few quotes:598
“I’m tired of being looked at like prey.”
“I’m tired of thinking about the horrifying final moments for 51 year old neighbor, Kim Leto, stabbed to death in her own home by two teenagers.”
“I’m tired of wondering why city leaders haven’t said shit about recent horrific murders committed by children in supposedly “safe” neighborhoods.
“I’m tired of living next to a beautiful park that I’m scared to walk into at any time of day, thanks to regular stories of day-time muggings, drug dealing and gang violence.”
Much like a similar article last year, “Being White in Philly,” Halvoersen’s story contained all the requisite apologies for noticing. All the protestations about her black friends. All the denials that she was a racist.
That did not change one fundamental fact: Crime in Baltimore is a black thing. And black on white crime is a secret that is simply not discussed. Other than to excuse it as a product of white racism, that is.
As indictments go, Halvorsen’s was pretty mild. She left out the dozens and dozens of examples of black mob violence documented in Baltimore in White Bleed a Lot.
Racial violence came home to the Baltimore Sun a few weeks before Halvorsen’s indictment. One of its editors, John Fogg, was attacked when he was getting out of his car and heading for his house just a few blocks from Halvorsen's. His skull is fractured in six places. He lost 10 teeth. The black suspect, in custody, was recently arrested for two other assaults, but charges were dropped before the case came to trial.
That might have been Halvorsen’s tipping point: Like the “Being White in Philly” article, Halvorsen’s story is provoking what one observer called “one big group therapy dialogue” -- with every major media site in the city running stories on it.
Halvorsen tried to pretend she did not notice race. You know, one of those, ‘they all just happened to be black, things.’
The black commentators disagreed: They said crime had everything to with race -- and Halvorsen’s racism. They talked about the “white privilege” that caused Halvorsen to notice the violence and somehow feel as if she were entitled to live in safe neighborhood.
The white racism that caused the black people to commit the crimes and violence.
“I think the problem here is that many white and/or upper/middle-class residents of Baltimore—and, of course, the Maryland suburbanites who work or play in Baltimore—show no sense of the structural problems plaguing the city and the roots of violence,” said Shereen at a local blog that focuses on journalism and music operated by NPR reporter Lawrence Lanahan.
Lanahan says its time to give some tough love to the white people in Baltimore who notice -- and do not like --crime.
“It’s tough to talk about white privilege in the face of crimes like the ones Halvorsen cites, with innocent victims killed and badly injured and stunned families left to grieve,” Lanahan said. “There’s also a lot that goes on, from individual decisions to local, state, and federal policy, that ensures–whether intentionally or not–that all the social ills stay where they “belong” in the neighborhoods that people like Halvorsen and, frankly, I won’t live in.
White neighborhoods “get more resources” than black neighborhoods, Lanahan said. That disparity somehow causes violence, he said.
Darn, I had been wondering about that. Good to know, finally. Resources. I’ll try to remember that. The Medium news site published a pushback a few days later:
“What breaks my heart is when someone says they are tired of looking at black youth in the city as potential predators, as if they are the ones at fault,” said Tim Barnett. “What breaks my heart is when someone acknowledges the sadness of the death of a white woman, but does not acknowledge the sadness of the bleak lives of 2 young black men.”
He’s talking about the killers. The black people arrested in the recent home invasion and murder of Kim Leto, also close to Halvorsen’s home.
Consider it acknowledged.