I love this post, and posts like it, and am in full agreement both about independence in neighborhoods being essential to child development, and also the fear mongering that has prevented it. HOWEVER, one thing I have not seen addressed in posts in articles, is that while statistics show that crime, etc is actually down, and so from a safety perspective there is not a reason to keep our kids indoors, what about cars/traffic. The number of cars on the road and the way people drive and the number of people looking down at phones while driving is an absolute nightmare where I live (suburban NJ). People will drive 50 plus on my 25 mph street, on the main street people speeding around a car stopped for a person crossing a street is CONSTANT, and you’ll frequently see 5 plus cars go through a light after it has changed. I know I’m not imagining these things. They are real and major issues here. And I don’t know how to reconcile them with wanting my kids to have independence. My oldest is 15 and thinking about him on the road in 2 years, where 90% of people seem to be looking down, is terrifying.
Your work so great for us all, your write today describing the neighborhood I and my school friends grew up in, in the '50's.
I'll add that after the '89 earthquake in the CA northern Bay Area, I started a program, before the current CERT, which asked 18 neighbors in a hood to share their phone numbers, places of work, day care contacts for their kids' schools and after schools care, their out-of-state phone numbers to call to inform families of the neighbors' condition after an earthquake or whatever, and ALL neighbors happily complied. I trained 250 neighborhoods in the area, with Captains, and supporting teams filled by the neighbors, they learning what to do in the aftermath of an event. This drew those neighbors even more strongly together, before phone numbers were no longer safe to share with the people Next Door.
Amazing post! I live in Berkeley too in the Bateman neighborhood. I signed up and want to start something here for my kids! I don’t want to be ruled by fear and I don’t want to pass that on to my children. Thanks for writing this!
I took one look at Nextdoor and said “this is nasty and negative. Nope.” Not on FB either. Thanks for this. Radical kindness and Radical Neighboring. A tip: learn people’s names and use them. I’m in a NYC neighborhood and it’s less “mean streets” that way.
"That’s — in part — why racist, terrified posts rack up views on Nextdoor, and Facebook group posts can inspire militia group activity in a rural community."
This is where you lose me. In terms of violence perpetuated by social media in the last 10 years, these are negligible. Neither is actually even violent. The anti-ICE riots recently; the QAnon stuff that prefigured Jan 6; BLM /Antifa riots. All were violent actions motivated and/or facilitated by social media.
The Southport riots in England could serve as a great recent (and right-wing) example as well. But the 2 examples given of Oakdale, where an armed right-wing group showed up BECAUSE they expected a left-wing BML/Antifa riot. And the Guardian article is even more absurd: American "black males can be shot for entering the wrong [presumably white] neighborhood". I suppose so. But how often does that really happen compared to Latino or white or Asian males getting shot for entering a black neighborhood?
The use of such obviously small-scale but right-wing examples to illustrate the violent dangers of social media implies that you're worried about your own reputation or safety should you incur the social media mob's wrath. And even you seem to know said mob is decidedly left-wing.
I live in a different world from most here. I live on a ranch in the most remote county in a frontier state. I really do not understand how people do not know their neighbors. We have to, because our county area is nearly 7000 square miles, and our population density is 0.5 persons/square mile. "The mountains are high, and the 'king' is far away." We don't hire government; we are the government. We are the fire department, the ambulance corps, the search and rescue, and the lady who owns a pie shop in Pie Town, and who brings pies to the people down on their luck.
We are also the unorganized militia. It is not a dirty word, despite the prejudices of the New York Times. You might want to read the Constitution. The militia doesn't exist because we are worried or afraid, but because when seconds count, the sheriff is likely 50 miles away. We don't go brandishing our weapons, but we do know how to use them. We hope we never have to do so against a human being. Nevertheless, we will defend ourselves if we must. There are not many of us, and a loss is hard to take.
Sir or Madam, your use of the New York Times article does not make your point. It did not take into account what we all knew was happening across the country in 2020. Why did the people in Oakdale, California become so concerned? Because at the time, there were many places in the United States where Antifa and BLM worked together to burn down and destroy entire city centers. People were threatened with frozen bottles and guillotines. People were killed. Our frontier state capital city experienced monuments toppled, and citizens clobbered by out-of-state Antifa and BLM thugs. In our state's largest city, an abuela was clobbered when she tried to protect a monument dedicated to her ancestors. Here ancestors weren't black, but they were not white, either. And what is the beef with the Epoch Times? We need more than one point of view.
If you want to make a difference, take a look at the stories below. You might want to expand your newspaper reading material beyond New York Times. Its editors have never been good or honest. It is well known that it suppressed and denied the Holocaust until it was too late to do something about it. Visit the flyover country. Talk to real people. Use the NYT only to line the birdcage.
While Nextdoor is full of nit-picky posts, as someone that has lived several decades in north Oakland saying Berkeley is safe is disingenuous. I got sick of dealing with rise of lawlessness in North Oakland AND Berkeley and moved to west Sonoma county, BEST MOVE EVER!!!, where I can leave my doors unlocked and accidentally left my garage open overnight several times and everything was perfectly fine. Do that in Berkeley your stuff will be stolen in minutes no matter how nice the neighborhood. My house in north Oakland was broken into multiple times. I feel that folks in the inner EB are conditioned to accept an unacceptable situation. Until the progressive underfunding of law enforcement changes best course of action is to leave.
I worry that Meta's glasses they're pushing are only going to amplify this effect as they create more microcontent than we've ever seen. No longer with these platforms have to depend on ring cameras or someone whipping out their phone. People will be able to contribute critical context-free content easier than ever.
This information is so important these days. What often seems helpful to neighborhoods and communities can drive them apart. And this all due to Al and algorithms. It plays to the basest of animal instincts - fear and survival. Until humanity reaches a more profound and full consciousness, fear will rule as it is so easily stoked.
I love this post, and posts like it, and am in full agreement both about independence in neighborhoods being essential to child development, and also the fear mongering that has prevented it. HOWEVER, one thing I have not seen addressed in posts in articles, is that while statistics show that crime, etc is actually down, and so from a safety perspective there is not a reason to keep our kids indoors, what about cars/traffic. The number of cars on the road and the way people drive and the number of people looking down at phones while driving is an absolute nightmare where I live (suburban NJ). People will drive 50 plus on my 25 mph street, on the main street people speeding around a car stopped for a person crossing a street is CONSTANT, and you’ll frequently see 5 plus cars go through a light after it has changed. I know I’m not imagining these things. They are real and major issues here. And I don’t know how to reconcile them with wanting my kids to have independence. My oldest is 15 and thinking about him on the road in 2 years, where 90% of people seem to be looking down, is terrifying.
Your work so great for us all, your write today describing the neighborhood I and my school friends grew up in, in the '50's.
I'll add that after the '89 earthquake in the CA northern Bay Area, I started a program, before the current CERT, which asked 18 neighbors in a hood to share their phone numbers, places of work, day care contacts for their kids' schools and after schools care, their out-of-state phone numbers to call to inform families of the neighbors' condition after an earthquake or whatever, and ALL neighbors happily complied. I trained 250 neighborhoods in the area, with Captains, and supporting teams filled by the neighbors, they learning what to do in the aftermath of an event. This drew those neighbors even more strongly together, before phone numbers were no longer safe to share with the people Next Door.
Amazing post! I live in Berkeley too in the Bateman neighborhood. I signed up and want to start something here for my kids! I don’t want to be ruled by fear and I don’t want to pass that on to my children. Thanks for writing this!
I took one look at Nextdoor and said “this is nasty and negative. Nope.” Not on FB either. Thanks for this. Radical kindness and Radical Neighboring. A tip: learn people’s names and use them. I’m in a NYC neighborhood and it’s less “mean streets” that way.
"That’s — in part — why racist, terrified posts rack up views on Nextdoor, and Facebook group posts can inspire militia group activity in a rural community."
This is where you lose me. In terms of violence perpetuated by social media in the last 10 years, these are negligible. Neither is actually even violent. The anti-ICE riots recently; the QAnon stuff that prefigured Jan 6; BLM /Antifa riots. All were violent actions motivated and/or facilitated by social media.
The Southport riots in England could serve as a great recent (and right-wing) example as well. But the 2 examples given of Oakdale, where an armed right-wing group showed up BECAUSE they expected a left-wing BML/Antifa riot. And the Guardian article is even more absurd: American "black males can be shot for entering the wrong [presumably white] neighborhood". I suppose so. But how often does that really happen compared to Latino or white or Asian males getting shot for entering a black neighborhood?
The use of such obviously small-scale but right-wing examples to illustrate the violent dangers of social media implies that you're worried about your own reputation or safety should you incur the social media mob's wrath. And even you seem to know said mob is decidedly left-wing.
I live in a different world from most here. I live on a ranch in the most remote county in a frontier state. I really do not understand how people do not know their neighbors. We have to, because our county area is nearly 7000 square miles, and our population density is 0.5 persons/square mile. "The mountains are high, and the 'king' is far away." We don't hire government; we are the government. We are the fire department, the ambulance corps, the search and rescue, and the lady who owns a pie shop in Pie Town, and who brings pies to the people down on their luck.
We are also the unorganized militia. It is not a dirty word, despite the prejudices of the New York Times. You might want to read the Constitution. The militia doesn't exist because we are worried or afraid, but because when seconds count, the sheriff is likely 50 miles away. We don't go brandishing our weapons, but we do know how to use them. We hope we never have to do so against a human being. Nevertheless, we will defend ourselves if we must. There are not many of us, and a loss is hard to take.
Sir or Madam, your use of the New York Times article does not make your point. It did not take into account what we all knew was happening across the country in 2020. Why did the people in Oakdale, California become so concerned? Because at the time, there were many places in the United States where Antifa and BLM worked together to burn down and destroy entire city centers. People were threatened with frozen bottles and guillotines. People were killed. Our frontier state capital city experienced monuments toppled, and citizens clobbered by out-of-state Antifa and BLM thugs. In our state's largest city, an abuela was clobbered when she tried to protect a monument dedicated to her ancestors. Here ancestors weren't black, but they were not white, either. And what is the beef with the Epoch Times? We need more than one point of view.
If you want to make a difference, take a look at the stories below. You might want to expand your newspaper reading material beyond New York Times. Its editors have never been good or honest. It is well known that it suppressed and denied the Holocaust until it was too late to do something about it. Visit the flyover country. Talk to real people. Use the NYT only to line the birdcage.
It is very nice Introduction. However, I think the ultimate solution is having less not more apps on the phone.
While Nextdoor is full of nit-picky posts, as someone that has lived several decades in north Oakland saying Berkeley is safe is disingenuous. I got sick of dealing with rise of lawlessness in North Oakland AND Berkeley and moved to west Sonoma county, BEST MOVE EVER!!!, where I can leave my doors unlocked and accidentally left my garage open overnight several times and everything was perfectly fine. Do that in Berkeley your stuff will be stolen in minutes no matter how nice the neighborhood. My house in north Oakland was broken into multiple times. I feel that folks in the inner EB are conditioned to accept an unacceptable situation. Until the progressive underfunding of law enforcement changes best course of action is to leave.
I worry that Meta's glasses they're pushing are only going to amplify this effect as they create more microcontent than we've ever seen. No longer with these platforms have to depend on ring cameras or someone whipping out their phone. People will be able to contribute critical context-free content easier than ever.
This information is so important these days. What often seems helpful to neighborhoods and communities can drive them apart. And this all due to Al and algorithms. It plays to the basest of animal instincts - fear and survival. Until humanity reaches a more profound and full consciousness, fear will rule as it is so easily stoked.