Goldie

I took the #70 Division bus tonight from the red line stop at Clark to Paulina. Clark and Division is at the edge of the Gold Coast (super-rich neighborhood), turns immediately into Old Town (still rich, a little younger and cuter, Second City is in the 'hood but on North), and then something was clearly wrong. New shopping centers and developments bore the name "Old Town" but I was pretty sure we'd passed Old Town and it didn't feel like Old Town. We were still on Division. There were mismatched new buildings scattered around huge empty lots, random blatant "green" developments, a big garden that looked like it had been planted on top of a parking lot with a sign advertising its Tuesday and Thursday markets and another sign tied to the fence that read "It takes a village to raise a tomato." The whole stretch felt like a ghost town with haphazardly placed well-intended left-winger projects band-aided over the holes. The bus was back among the affluent and into the hipsters of Wicker Park when it finally dawned on me where we'd driven:
Cabrini-Green.
If you're not from Chicago, that may not be much of a punch-line. Cabrini Green was a notorious housing project. [For more info, have fun with the Wikipedia site and Chicago Housing Authority site.] Six years ago, when they began tearing down the buildings of Cabrini-Green, I would have been much more aware what lie between the red line and Wicker Park and probably would have opted for a different public transportation path. But in 2008, I sat across the aisle of the #70 from a redhead who spent the entire ride on her cell phone flirting and talking about ultimate frisbee. A woman in her 60s got on a few stops before we crossed the Chicago River, still in the heart of the ghost town, but she started to get off at the next stop because she couldn't pay the fare. "Does anyone have one ride on their transit card?" Someone swiped for her to get back on the bus. The area is certainly safer, but what happened to the thousands and thousands of people who used to live there? Where are they now? The CHA hasn't accepted new applicants for housing since 2001. Totally fucked up. It's like the entire plan for Cabrini has been to make the world nicer for Rich White People and worse for Poor Black People. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I don't love the Chicago Tribune or their reporting, but read this anyway.

And another thing! How can so many people be so deeply and disgustingly racist in so many ways?
I am small, blonde and female, and even if I'm wearing old sweatpants and a stained t-shirt, I walk down the street or into a store and IMMEDIATELY get the benefit of the doubt. Cops do me favors, I've never been accused of stealing anything or loitering, no one crosses the street when they see me coming. I am grateful for these things, but I did nothing more to deserve them than any other human being. I just happened to be born blonde and female in a world that values that.

I don't expect any major paradigm shifts from a silly blog post, but if you could think for a minute about the difference between living with and without the constant benefit of the doubt (and the really sick part is we've gotten to the point where it's not just white people doubting everyone else, but everyone else doubting themselves in varying ways and to varying degrees, too).

Please? Do it for the little blonde girl.