I drove a foreign friend through SouthCentral (where the riots started) in the mid 90s. She really liked the neighborhood with big streets and palm trees. I poi

I drove a foreign friend through SouthCentral (where the riots started) in the mid 90s. She really liked the neighborhood with big streets and palm trees. I pointed out the bars on the windows and she said her homes had all had bars on the windows growing up. She also liked that there were a lot more people hanging out, until I pointed out it was a school day and the kids on the corner ought to be there instead. Also, that I was blowing stop signs didn't bother her, until I mentioned that we would be expected to buy crack, if we stopped. Of course when I visited her home town and walked up a hill for the view one afternoon, I didn't think that much about a syringes off the side of the trail, but her family lost their minds that I had been in the most dangerous part of the city, "people are killed there all the time". We are terrible about judging dangerous areas outside of our cultural experience. Many westerner's can't even identify a RedLight area in Asia, "Why are all those women wearing such short dresses?", "all those girls (actually boys) are really dressed up nice".