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I'm not really afraid in the city, and sometimes I think I perhaps should be a little more. I've always been aware of my surroundings and continue that practice (In fact, I raised my daughter with "always be aware of your surroundings, who is around you, what the situation is" and so forth. Now at 32, she has said to me, "Ma, it's amazing to me how many people do NOT seem to be aware of what's going on around them."
But, as you know, I got out of the WTC on 9/11. One of the side effects of that experience was that after facing what I thought might be the moment of my death, I seem to have lost most of my fear of death. Not that I wouldn't flinch if face with a gun or an oncoming train, but more like an acceptance that we die and there might not be much we can do about it.
I do some work that requires me to attend engineering industry events, usually at night. Many of these events are held at a venue near GCT. I take a train back to Jersey from Penn, and most of the time I walk the 1.1 miles to Penn. I like walking through the city. It has an energy, and now that the pandemic is behind, people are out on the streets, in the bars and restaurants, shopping, on line for the ESB ob deck, (it's generally around 7:30 - 8 pm when I'm out walking. I'm not scared; in fact, I enjoy the walk. Yes, there are sketch people on the street here and there, but there always have been, and I stay aware of them and where they are in relation to me, but I'm not afraid. And I'm 65 years old.
Thank you for sharing MQ.
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"The man who sleeps on the floor, can never fall out of bed." -Martin Lawrence
For me, it's not terrorism, although that is a concern always given what NYC symbolizes to Jihadists and the like. For me, it's random street violence. Thankfully, things are as bad as they were when I was growing up in Bed-Stuy in the 1990s (I've written before about how we were almost shot walking down Nostrand Avenue on the way home, my father and brother were both robbed at gunpoint on our block coming home, we've been at corner stores where a clear robbery was about to happen and the clerk motioned for us to leave in order to avoid danger, hearing gunshots at all times during the night, etc.), they aren't exactly trending in the right direction either.
Yes, just this, some random violence. I was also downtown for 9/11 and survived. It was no fun there for years after the event, but you just dealt with things as they came and it gave me confidence in my common sense - or something like that, it's hard to put into words.
But no amount of common sense or survival instinct can stop craziness. And it seems like the whole world has been going crazier by the day, with too many crazy people concentrated in NYC.
Does the color of the thug going off matter to you?
I am color blind when it comes to crime. However, I have a good sense for picking out the dangerous individuals from a crowd. Most of the time I am on guard when near certain types of young black males depending on how they act.
My biggest fear is not so much the action of being a victim of crime in 2024, but knowing that I was born and raised here and survived the 1980s/90s unscathed yet couldn't make it out alive in 2024.
Though I was close to the towers on 9/11 and have the same horror stories as everyone else, terrorism isn't something that worries me. It's the random street thug, usually a young male minority, that worries me day to day to day to day to day.
I am color blind when it comes to crime. However, I have a good sense for picking out the dangerous individuals from a crowd. Most of the time I am on guard when near certain types of young black males depending on how they act.
The color of their skin makes them more prone to violence, is that what you're saying? Why not certain types of white or Asian males?
The other day I saw a White man acting erratically in the street, I didn't tell myself, let me keep an eye on this White man, I said to myself let me keep an eye on this man. Because if he came up to my car and started harassing me, what matter would his skin color have made at that point. Why is it let me keep an eye on this Black man, and not let me keep an eye on this man, when it comes to Black people. See, this is the problem.
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"The man who sleeps on the floor, can never fall out of bed." -Martin Lawrence
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