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I think what I was trying to convey is that the image of life in an American city that the parent was portraying, when he described a beautiful, wealthy city as

I think what I was trying to convey is that the image of life in an American city that the parent was portraying, when he described a beautiful, wealthy city as "Fallujah" (which he has now deleted), and what this couple clearly had in their head, is just completely alien to most people who actually live in those cities. The impression that you get from conservative media and often local TV news is just completely divorced from reality - or at best the media has taken the experience of a relatively small number of people who live in particularly dangerous housing projects, or particularly dangerous streets, and presented it as how the city works in general. I know Boston better than Washington, so I'll use that as an example. Admittedly, it's a city with much lower crime than Washington, but I've had plenty of experiences talking to older, more conservative people who live in suburban and rural areas, and seem to think it's crime ridden. I used to work in several neighborhoods that are considered dangerous - Roxbury and Mattapan, and I've spent time in some of the rougher parts of Dorchester. I've been inside a number of low-income housing projects. I've walked and ridden buses in these neighborhoods. What I noticed was that whatever concern I felt about my safety came from things that I had heard from the media, not from anything that I personally saw, or even anything that happened to anyone I knew. There are a few exceptions to this, like a few blocks in the South End where homeless addicts congregate where I would genuinely be concerned about something happening. The neighborhoods where I've lived - which are not necessarily affluent - have all felt perfectly safe, with the exception of some petty thefts - particularly bike thefts. I am not trying to argue that there is no crime problem anywhere - of course there is and people shouldn't have to live in unsafe areas. But as someone who has intimate knowledge of a major American city, it very much feels like there's a propaganda machine that's pumping out distorted images of life in American cities, either for political purposes or simply because sensationalizing crime draws more viewers. People who don't live in these cities are left with a view that completely lacks the nuance and complexity of actual life in a major city.

rayiner 1y ago
Boston and New York are in a totally different league than DC. Even at DC’s best in 2012, it had a homicide rate more than three times as high as those cities. And currently, DC’s homicide rate is more than six times as high. And I’m not unfamiliar with how cities work. I lived in downtown Wilmington Delaware, in Baltimore not too far from Sandtown, and work in DC. But your point boils down to “yuppies aren’t going to get shot if they need to buy something in Anacostia” and that’s a stupid argument. The pro-criminal yuppies in DC are out of touch, hypocritical assholes. Sure, I felt safe living in my new apartment complex in gentrified Chinatown and taking an Uber to Eastern Market. But I couldn’t help but notice that everyone around me was also white/asian and college educated. It’s like everyone knew and followed the city’s unstated rules of segregation. It was safe—for the yuppies—under those circumstances.
- apical_dendrite 1y ago
  The point that I'm trying to make is that relentless propaganda from right-wing media gives people a false impression of life in cities like Washington DC. Hence the poster I was responding to casually comparing Washington to Fallujah and Haiti, one a literal war zone, and the other a place where the social order completely collapsed and even basic services like electricity and clean water were not available. It's an absolutely absurd comparison, and yet many people who only get their information from this propaganda machine absolutely believe this. What is out of touch is declaring that the crime problem, which is actually improving, is an emergency that justifies deploying troops to the streets of the capital. These troops are being deployed to the areas around the national mall where they are highly visible - but there is very little violent crime and a lot of existing police presence around the monuments. They aren't trained or experienced in street-level law enforcement. Neither are the FBI agents, who are being taken away from other critical priorities like counterintelligence to patrol the national mall. Note that Trump did not deploy the national guard on January 6th, when there was a genuine threat on the national mall. This is not a genuine effort to address crime. It is an extremely cynical effort to look like they are addressing crime while they grab more and more unchecked executive power.

rayiner 1y ago

Boston and New York are in a totally different league than DC. Even at DC’s best in 2012, it had a homicide rate more than three times as high as those cities. And currently, DC’s homicide rate is more than six times as high. And I’m not unfamiliar with how cities work. I lived in downtown Wilmington Delaware, in Baltimore not too far from Sandtown, and work in DC. But your point boils down to “yuppies aren’t going to get shot if they need to buy something in Anacostia” and that’s a stupid argument. The pro-criminal yuppies in DC are out of touch, hypocritical assholes. Sure, I felt safe living in my new apartment complex in gentrified Chinatown and taking an Uber to Eastern Market. But I couldn’t help but notice that everyone around me was also white/asian and college educated. It’s like everyone knew and followed the city’s unstated rules of segregation. It was safe—for the yuppies—under those circumstances.

apical_dendrite 1y ago
The point that I'm trying to make is that relentless propaganda from right-wing media gives people a false impression of life in cities like Washington DC. Hence the poster I was responding to casually comparing Washington to Fallujah and Haiti, one a literal war zone, and the other a place where the social order completely collapsed and even basic services like electricity and clean water were not available. It's an absolutely absurd comparison, and yet many people who only get their information from this propaganda machine absolutely believe this. What is out of touch is declaring that the crime problem, which is actually improving, is an emergency that justifies deploying troops to the streets of the capital. These troops are being deployed to the areas around the national mall where they are highly visible - but there is very little violent crime and a lot of existing police presence around the monuments. They aren't trained or experienced in street-level law enforcement. Neither are the FBI agents, who are being taken away from other critical priorities like counterintelligence to patrol the national mall. Note that Trump did not deploy the national guard on January 6th, when there was a genuine threat on the national mall. This is not a genuine effort to address crime. It is an extremely cynical effort to look like they are addressing crime while they grab more and more unchecked executive power.