{"id":17116,"date":"2015-06-11T13:59:14","date_gmt":"2015-06-11T19:59:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/?p=17116"},"modified":"2015-08-07T09:14:24","modified_gmt":"2015-08-07T15:14:24","slug":"how-to-live-near-section-eight-housing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/2015\/06\/how-to-live-near-section-eight-housing\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Live Near Section Eight Housing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Last Friday\u2019s pool-party fracas in the Craig Ranch section of McKinney, Texas ended with Corporal David Eric Casebolt\u2019s resigning from the McKinney police force after making an ogre of himself on video.<\/a> But it is said to have begun with a volley of insults. Piqued at seeing her community pool swarming with unruly black teens, who apparently exceeded the two-guests-per-resident ratio by a wide margin, Tracey Carver-Allbritton allegedly told 19-year-old Tatiana Rhodes:<\/a> \u201cGo back to your Section Eight home!\u201d<\/p>\n

In point of fact, Rhodes doesn\u2019t live in a Section Eight home. As a Craig Ranch resident, she is Carver-Allbritton\u2019s neighbor and social equal. Rhodes\u2019 race could well form the greater part of the reason Carver-Albritton jumped to the wrong conclusion and flipped out \u2014 in Rhodes\u2019 account, she insulted that race explicitly. But to really understand Carver-Allbritton\u2019s explosion, we have to take into account her own precarious place in the pecking order.<\/p>\n

On her Facebook profile, Carver-Allbritton had described herself as a Bank of America loan officer. Researchers have since identified her<\/a> as an employee of Core Logic, Inc., a financial data and analytics firm that subcontracts to Bank of America. Her job title is still unknown, but if it\u2019s \u201cloan officer,\u201d or anything to do with loan processing, then she\u2019s one of the clerical workers or sales people who make up the lower end of the middle class. That is to say, she\u2019s one of those in constant danger of being knocked into the socioeconomic abyss by inflation, outsourcing or other trends far outside her control. To Carter-Allbritton, Tatiana Rhodes must have looked like that abyss coming up to snatch her.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m speculating, of course. But I don\u2019t see that Carver-Allbritton has any cause to resent it. Now that Core Logic has placed her on administrative leave, explaining her actions \u2013 which included screeching and brawling like a fishwife \u2013 can only help her. Anyway, I\u2019m speaking as someone who long ago ended up where she fears to go. The apartment complex where I live is bounded on the north by government-subsidized housing. Nearly all of the residents are black \u2013 many are African refugees. Through various devices, they breach our safe space on a regular basis. <\/p>\n

Occasionally, they do bring along a whiff of the underclass anarchy I\u2019d been raised to fear, but which \u2014 Calvinistically \u2014 I half-believe is my just deserts for allowing myself to slide down the social ladder. Given a little patience and imagination, though, it\u2019s possible to cope without coming off like a mean-minded racist nitwit.<\/p>\n

Learn to tell the difference between a normal bratty teen and a menace.<\/strong> Granted, the older you get, the harder this can be, but clues do present themselves. Only a week or so after moving in, I stepped onto my landing to smell marijuana smoke close by. Looking around the corner, I found a pair of 16-year-olds sharing the end of a blunt. Glancing up, they looked embarrassed and a little guilty, which is how people look when they\u2019re caught doing something they know they shouldn\u2019t be doing. I took it as evidence they\u2019d been properly raised.<\/p>\n

Learn to distinguish an annoyance from a threat.<\/strong> There is a group of about four or five teenagers who mistake our rec room for FAO Schwartz. The plates of the Universal machine tend to clang when handled carelessly, and clanging tends to distract me when I\u2019m composing on my laptop. Rather than confront the infiltrators, I report them to the front office. Not only do I avoid scenes that way, I can rest assured that I\u2019m getting some service in exchange for the latest rent hike.<\/p>\n

Pick your battles.<\/strong> My unit faces the eight-foot spiked fence raised to separate us from them. For several days running, whenever I stepped out to smoke a cigarette, I\u2019d hear, \u201cHEY, STINKY!\u201d or \u201cHEY, WHITE MAN!\u201d coming from one of the windows on the second story of a cinder-block apartment building behind it. Looking up, I saw smirking faces peeking back at me from under a Venetian blind. They belonged to a trio of kids whose ages I guessed to be between eight and 10.<\/p>\n

Maybe if I\u2019d had kids of my own (or if I hadn\u2019t managed to miss my nieces\u2019 entire childhoods), I\u2019d have known how to befriend them. As it was, I took offense at the heckling but knew better than to get into a serious war of words with a bunch of grade-schoolers. Instead, I stood my ground, keeping my eyes fixed above the horizon like a tomb sentinel until I smoked each cigarette down to the filter. Within a few days, I succeeded in boring the sprogs till they left me alone. <\/p>\n

Pause to marvel over cultural differences<\/strong>. Yes, our pool has been stormed and occupied. One Fourth of July weekend, a group of Somalis showed up. Before testing the water, one young woman stripped down to her bra and panties, leaving on her hijab. It was all I could do not to write Bernard Lewis, demanding an explanation.<\/p>\n

Acknowledge your own part in unfortunate events.<\/strong> In the summer of 2006, a group of Sudanese stole my wallet and keys, found their way to my apartment, and made off with my bike and computer. That\u2019s the truth. The whole truth is that a group of Sudanese plucked my wallet and keys from one of my shoes, where I\u2019d stuck them after bolting down four shots of Sky vodka, six Mickey\u2019s Big Mouths, going for a midnight swim, and passing out on a chaise longue. <\/p>\n

Even if you go off, don\u2019t go there.<\/strong> For a long time, a pan-African group gathered every night to play basketball on our court. On their way, the players passed my unit. One night, seeing me smoking on the landing, one of them asked for a cigarette. I obliged him \u2013 and the next time, and the time after that. When the jonesing player stopped for the fourth time, however, I told him curtly that I was all out.<\/p>\n

Maybe I should have concealed the pack, which was lying on the staircase that led to the upper units. When the man saw it, he said something sarcastic. His rudeness pushed me to a place where I was just about ready to throw our status difference right back in his teeth. The words \u201cTake your six-foot, eight-inch, 140-lb ass back to Darfur, you Dinka dink!\u201d formed in my brain. <\/p>\n

What came out of my mouth instead was a simple, egalitarian oath, a phrasal verb beginning with \u201cf\u201d and ending with \u201coff.\u201d As the man\u2019s friends dragged him away, I felt relieved knowing I\u2019d chosen the better part.<\/p>\n

Granted, as a renter, I don\u2019t have the same proprietorial stake in my living space that the folks in Craig Ranch have in theirs. Maybe it\u2019s not for someone like me, who\u2019s fallen out of the middle class, to preach at people who are still hanging in there. Still, I maintain that by being patient and showing the odd touch of noblesse oblige, you can just about pretend you\u2019ve vaulted all the way into the upper class, where a half-mile driveway stands between you and all world\u2019s madness. <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last Friday\u2019s pool-party fracas in the Craig Ranch section of McKinney, Texas ended with Corporal David Eric Casebolt\u2019s resigning from the McKinney police force after making an ogre of himself on video. But it is said to have begun with a volley of insults. Piqued at seeing her community pool swarming with unruly black teens, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":192,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1310,1311,1307,1308,119,1306,201,1215,1309,1305],"class_list":["post-17116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-africa","tag-bernard-lewis","tag-craig-ranch","tag-david-casebolt","tag-islam","tag-mckinney-pool-party-fracas","tag-race","tag-somalia","tag-sudan","tag-tracey-carver-allbritton"],"yoast_head":"\nHow to Live Near Section Eight Housing<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Last Friday\u2019s pool-party fracas in the Craig Ranch section of McKinney, Texas ended with Corporal David Eric Casebolt\u2019s resigning from the McKinney police\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, 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