CONFOUNDING

It’s despicable and shocking to me that while the city and inner Brooklyn becomes increasingly bourgie, and let’s face it yuppie hell, this type of thing can continue and its resources shuttered, on some Reagan-era “let’s close all the parks in the hood” shit. Might I remind you that this is not the first time the violence in Far Rock have been in the news; Redfern Projects is where Stack Bundles lived and was murdered one year ago, may god rest his soul. They put in a lot of foot-patrol after that happened, too. It stayed the same. Maybe if some city planners redirected the cop money into actually improving the quality of living for people, keeping open their community center, bettering their schools, fucking putting in some sports shit, something, this wouldn’t perpetuate itself. Meanwhile the idea of 14-year-olds killing each other is devastating.
SIDEBAR. They shut down the drug house up the block. Everyone got evicted, there’s a sign in front that says it’s under video surveillance, and there’s a huge padlock on the door. There are less crackheads on my street now *maybe,* but there are also less nice kids out front who had to slang for whatever reason (and a couple not so nice ones). I’m not complaining either way, I am stating fact. But what I am complaining about: this drug house was allowed to exist *consistently* for the past five years or more, long enough that I’ve seen different dealers go away, come back and get their lives together (one of the dudes is even going to college now), and barring the occasional cop on the corner patrolling the bodega, no one did shit about it. Tell me why–as soon as it seems my block has finally completed the cycle of going from almost all black and puerto rican when I first moved in, to being almost entirely white–somebody finally decided to do something about the drug house?