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The unbearable sadness of a neighborhood
By adamg on Sun, 12/16/2012 - 11:52am
The Globe has a very good and very sad look at Geneva/Bowdoin, as told through the lens of Big Nate, Trina and their 14-year-old son Nicholas, stalked and gunned down for no good reason. The point at which I almost lost it:
Later, Big Nate gathered up some rags, filled a bucket with water and went to the street corner. He wanted to wash away his son’s blood, as though in a final act of care. But he could find no blood to clean. He stood with his bucket and rags, stood through the night until the sun came up and there was nothing left to do but go home.
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Comments
I can't feel too bad for these people
Because they knew that neighborhood was awful, and chose to raise a family there anyway. They have no one to blame but themselves.
Dude, FUCK OFF.
There are ups and downs to every neighborhood. I personally would rather live and spend time in places where I don't have to deal with people making ignorant comments and pitying people.
I don't even know who you are or where you live, but you're being really ignorant and condescending when you suggest that wherever it is you live has something that people in other neighborhoods should want.
Yeah, sorry
I don't live anywhere fabulous. But I don't have children yet. As a parent, your job is to raise your kid to be a productive member of society, to keep them physically safe. If you are raising children in a house sprinkled with bullet holes, are allowing a known gang member to live in the presence of a toddler, or sending your kids to schools where they have to pick a gang alliance to feel safe, you are desperately failing your children . No, you are neglecting them. With a criminal history, they will never be able to be productive members of society. And that's the ones that live to see adulthood.
The parents all sound like they are decent enough people who tried. But sometimes, trying isn't good enough. Kids don't need much- all they need is to be kept safe from criminals. These people could not do that. They utterly failed as parents.
Close...
But still way wide of the mark.
Should properly read "WE utterly failed as a society."
But go ahead, continue to stroke your sanctimonious and superior ego.
(I'll admit, someone's parent's failed...)
Oh please, cry me a (white
Oh please, cry me a (white guilt) river! Why are Adams Village, Pope's Hill and Savin Hill perfectly safe even though the residents aren't much more affluent than those in Bowdoin/Geneva?
Savin Hill not more affluent than Bowdoin/Geneva?
It certainly feels like a prosperous place whenever I walk up that hill.
How is it prosperous? It's a
How is it prosperous? It's a working/lower middle class neighborhood, where most people make less than the Bowdoin/Geneva residents on govt assistance once you factor in TANF/SNAP/Section 8.
"Nate has lived in the house
"Nate has lived in the house since 1970, when he was 10, when his mother moved him from Baltimore and nearly killed herself paying the mortgage. She wanted a decent place for him to grow up."
What does Big Nate do for a
What does Big Nate do for a living? I don't think it's too much to ask in such an extensive story.
He drives trucks
Which I know because I read it in the story (granted not right at the very top).
No, the article said he
No, the article said he "drove" trucks - past tense. And the story also goes on about how Nate sits on his porch for hours on end.
They pointedly note that the wife is working. What is Nate doing?
This is what you fixate on?
Not that this will stop you, but if Big Nate was 10 in 1970, he's at least nearing retirement age. Depending on who he worked for, he may already have been eligible for retirement and taken it - like my father did, the second he could get out of the Amtrak repair facility he worked in for 40 years. My dad also sits on the porch a lot now. Want to take a pot shot at him, too? Both of his kids are still alive, though, so it may not be as much fun for you.
So 52 is the new retirement age?
There's more to this story that the Boston Globe refuses to report and it's perfectly acceptable to question the home life that may have contributed to the tragedy of this family. Yes, the neighborhood is terrible, but what about the responsibilities of the parents?
The Globe is so afraid of being judgmental, they simply leave out big parts of this story. For example, there's this glancing reference that Nate spent time in prison ("I was in your shoes.") And it appears that he has no job while the wife does work. Now Nate Jr. is in jail it looks like he's heading towards a short life in a gang.
This is the sin of the father visited on the child. But we must not judge - or even know the details - because, well, we just can't.
My, aren't we privileged
You just HAVE to keep TRYING to find a way to blame this on the family, don't you?
That way, you can convince your privileged little arse that GOD LOVES YOU BEST because you were born special? Really?
Or is it more of a "it won't EVER happen to me because I'M PERFECT AND SPECIAL BECAUSE MOMMY SAYS SO"? Really?
I guess it also keeps you from having to face your own faults because you can get so judgy about this family and not realize that you are one seriously fucked up jerkweed with no redeeming social significance whatsoever who has no fucking idea what it is like to work so hard all your life that you wear out younger than rich white people do.
Just keep blathering away, privileged baby. Keep prattling on about how you are so special because you were born well-off rather than having to work for it ... and maybe fail.
Let me guess - Simmons social
Let me guess - Simmons social work major, born and raised in Wellesley/Weston/Winchester?
I agree with them
Regardless of who they are or where they came from, because they are right.
I'm white Northwest trailer trash low income, drugs in the neighborhood, child of working class parents. Same poverty demographic as the boys in Nirvana and Green Day.
I picked produce and raked filberts for the money to participate in sports and activities. Certainly a hell of a lot more than you have probably ever had to do. But, hey, it wasn't the daily child labor my parents went through - my late, wore out and died in their 60s from early poverty and hard labor parents. Despite their too-early start on parenting and economic degradation that kept them down, they gave me a much better life than the neglect and exploitation they knew. Oh, but they had kids living in a trailer court ... call child welfare! (both kids finished college, one with an advanced degree ...)
Go fuck yourself with a high speed eggbeater. Please.
But you didn't turn into a
But you didn't turn into a gun-toting, crack-dealing gangbanger, so sounds like they were good parents after all.
First of all
there are multiple ANONs posting on this page.
Second of all, the Globe ran the second portion of the article today. It's not behind the paywall. According to that article, Big Nate had a history of robberies at knifepoint and did time in jail as a young man. During the trials of poor Nicholas's killers, he was removed from the courtroom for acting out in contempt of court. Big Nate is no prince himself.
It's called "limited choices"
I'm sure they would have loved to have lived in JP, Rozzie, Beacon Hill - wherever. Given their resources, their choices were somewhat limited.
Sorry I had to state the obvious.
So your saying
The parents of the children at Sandy Hook Elementary School are also to blame for the death of their children. How dare they move into the same town as a woman who collected guns and her apparently disturbed son?
Totally different
Wealthy white neighborhoods and non-wealthy non-white neighborhoods simply can not be compared.
This anon really wins the prize as worst poster of the year here at U Hub.
No
If a white kid was being raised in a home with drugs, guns, and gang members, a teacher would have called in CPS ages ago. But because they're poor and minority, people give them a pass, as if they are animals who can't help themselves.
It's very sad and condescending to assume that someone's race and socioeconomic status renders them incapable of making good choices in life.
What is a 'white' neighborhood?
ANYONE can live on Beacon Hill [and they do], anyone can live say Brookline [and they do], anyone can can live pretty much where ever they want provided they have the $, and they do. NO ONE in this country is stopped due to 'race' from living where they can manage to find and afford housing. IN FACT there are VERY STRICT laws regarding discrimination in place that give special status to some -people, that have been in place for 40 odd-years or so. I live in a 'white' neighborhood [your definition] and my neighbor to the right of me is black. My neighbor two doors down is Asian.
And I grew up white in I suppose what you'd call oppressed neighborhoods of color. Yes, there are 'poor' white people just like any other. People like you be well advised to pay much more attention to discrimination in our society based on a person's socioeconomic background, not on their skin tone, although I realize this is a tall order and it's much easier to stick to skin tone.
Aww, poor bigoted dickweed
He couldn't play the "absent father" card, so now he feels that he needs to play the "not good enough father" and "how dare they have kids in what *I* think is a *bad* neighborhood" card.
Not all opinions count
You are entitled to your opinion but it's not a good one and you are wrong. In fact, I suspect you know that and that is why you posted anonymously. Sometimes, some people's thoughts don't count.