a lot of drugs on dean

One shouldn't assume. Unless someone directly tells you that they are white, a new comer to Central Brooklyn (specifically Crown Heights) and economically sound, one shouldn't make the assumption that someone who is posting here is any of the above. There are various people here who come from various backgrounds and experiences and have lived here for varying lengths of time. As far as I am concerned, turf wars went out of style with with knickers and high top shoes. No one can claim ownership of a neighborhod just because they have lived on a piece of the land for umpteen years. None of us were alive when the neighborhood was first built, AND when it was built, it was built for people who (knicker & high top shoe wearers) were much different than ALL of us. Neighborhoods change.

When I was six years old, I was afraid to go to school, truly afraid. My grandmother looked me in my eyes and told me that "God don't like no cowardly soldiers." Now, I don't wish to debate anyone's particular religious bent at this time. What I will say is that my grandmother, in that one exchange, with all of her one room school house, elementary school education, propelled me forward and gave me the courage to exist and function in what I found to be a disfunctional world. She didn't say accept it, suck it up, etc. She said don't be afraid to get what's yours. In this case I apply it to my fight to raise expectations, not lower them. She knew where we lived, but she tried with all of her might to not let her family succomb to our surroundings.

I don't think anyone has suggested that they are expecting a utopian existence. Life ain't perfect. But again, there is nothing wrong with raising one's expectations. There's nothing wrong with wanting more. A big paycheck shouldn't be the determining factor in having clean streets. Also, I can't mind my own business and just worry about me and mines if these other people keep deciding to infringe upon MY life. When I have to clean up the feces of a drug addict who took a dump under my stoop, I have become totally engaged in a situation that is not of my choosing. When my mother-in-law has a bullet come flying through her window, (thank God she was laying down rather than standing up) we are pulled into a situation not of our making.

I wish I could only be concerned about my own comings and goings, but I can't because there are people determined not to let me. I understand that people are going to do what they do as long as they are not persuaded to do something different. I understand why people engage in the drug trade. That doesn't mean that I should accept it or ignore it. Maybe I'm missing something. Please forgive me if I am.

faithful wrote: This is our community and we should want and expect more. We are not animals!!!

Exactly.

I mean, shoot -- if Martin Luther King had said "that's just the way it's always going to be" or if Che Guevara had said "if it ain't your business, don't make it your business" or if Susan B. Anthony or Betty Friedan had said "trying to make some big crusade will get you nowhere" or if the Lovings of Virginia had just said "just accept things where you are", THEN where would we all be?

Never knew that Dean Street was considered a drug hot spot. It probably was the rat poison as I cannot believe that the amount of drugs discussed would be so openly displayed on the street.