The Ghetto Is My Safe Space
Humanity is found where we deny it
“You turn into a different person the moment we walk out the door,” my boyfriend told me once, soon after he arrived in my native country.
“How so?”
“You’re on edge. You harden up. As if you’re expecting something bad to happen.”
Hearing this was one of those eye-opening moments: like I was a fish and I was just told I’d been swimming in water. It’s been all around me, all my life, and I could only now tell it apart.
I’m not talking about the run-of-the-mill aggressions you run into in all big cities: the catcalling, the slurs, the verbal threats, the successful and unsuccessful physical assault attempts.
I’m talking about something deeper.
Neighbors meeting your eyes only in search of something to gossip about. Store clerks glaring at you the moment you step into their shop. Fellow passengers in the public transport and pedestrians on the street pressing their elbows or shoulders into you, almost fishing for a fight, their alienation so deep that only aggression can bridge the divide.
If I walk down a street and I try to pass by a fellow pedestrian, nine times out of ten they’ll start walking faster. Very often they’ll even step right in front of me, completely…
