5 Sept – After #Ferguson

As part of the healing process, please talk about how you processed the events of Ferguson.

As I mentioned in my previous post, the events of Ferguson were broadcast on the news, but are issues that aren’t necessarily relevant in Australia.

It’s sad that this behaviour still exists in other countries, particularly America, and surprising that more isn’t being done to change people’s perceptions. As I discussed in another previous post, stereotypes exist in society, due to the behaviours of a minority of people of a particular race. In America, a percentage of African-Americans conduct thigh-like behaviour or criminal behaviour, and therefore, they’re all viewed as being thugs / criminals. Granted, there are a number of contributing factors which lead to this behaviour, but I think that if they’re so upset about it, they really should be putting more of a focus on changing people’s perceptions about them – but in order to do that, it requires changing the behaviours of the people who are purporting this stereotype.

Until that happens, unfortunately these issues are not going to change. You can try educating people to a certain extent, however, it’s up to each individual to try and influence and create change not just in themselves, but also in others.

My heart goes out to those directly affected by the events of Ferguson.

3 Sept – #Ferguson

What is the most helpful post (or Twitter hashtag) you read in all the coverage on Ferguson?

 

I don’t use twitter so I haven’t been following this story that closely.

Living overseas, it’s interesting how this story is portrayed in international media, and from what I’ve seen, it was run as a story about an innocent teenager who was innocently gunned down and murdered by the police. The police were portraying him as a ‘thug’, as well as other ultra-conservative media outlets, whereas other media outlets were calling those people out on it and calling shenanigans as a case of racial profiling / stereotyping.

Being an ‘outsider’ to this type of story, it’s hard to form an opinion about the situation, because we’re being presented with both sides of the story. This type of issue in terms of violence between police and African-Americans doesn’t really exist in out country – well, certainly not to the extent that it does in the United States. Instead, we just have a government more concerned with turning away political refugees and asylum seekers and sending them right back to where they were fleeing from, or locking them up in refugee centres. Well done, Australia.

Given that our media is soooo heavily influenced by American media, I try to avoid it as much as possible, because it’s usually only about 3 things:
– the most recent school shooting,
– whatever couch Kim Kardashian is currently impersonating, and
– every little thing that Obama does.

Okay, so maybe it’s not that bad, but it is pretty full on. Sometimes I feel like our supposed ‘local’ news is just relaying everything that happened in America, and then it’s interrupted with tomorrow’s local weather. This is why I try to avoid the news.

In terms of US media, I’m not going to deny that the black community is regularly portrayed as the violent criminals and the police are always doing the right thing – by gunning them down. But at the same time, the US police seem to have the same reputation as the Victorian police here used to: shoot first, ask questions later. I can’t help but feel as though the US cops are a bit too trigger happy and they get a bit power hungry from wearing the uniform, that mentality of “I AM the law, so I’m completely untouchable” and so they can then pretty much do anything regardless of whether it’s using excess force to subdue a suspect, through to shooting an innocent person, they don’t care because they’re in a uniform – and that makes it okay.

However, if the guy shoots a cop, he’s up for the death penalty…

Daily Prompt: Good Fences?

Who are your neighbors? Are you friends with them, barely say hi, or avoid them altogether? Tell us a story — real or invented — about the people on the other side of your wall (or street, or farm, or… you get the point). 

First of all, let’s start by spelling it properly – n-e-i-g-h-b-o-u-r-s… thank you.

I have no idea who our neighbours are.

Well, I know that the people on one side are a bunch of junkies and / or dealers. The people on the other side of us… no idea.

We live in a modern apartment building – there’s about 40+ apartments in here, and surprisingly, the only time I ever see anybody is when we’re driving into the carpark, or we see them in the lift.

The people above us have wooden floorboards. We hear every time they drop something, if somebody is wearing stilettos, or if they’re dragging a chair across the floor. It’s actually pretty loud, so clearly there’s not enough soundproofing in their floor / our ceiling.

It’s not actually like that, but sometimes it may as well be – we hear every footstep and it can be quite annoying.

The junkies next door have always got really dodgy-looking people hanging around their apartment. Sometimes I will come home and see a couple of junkies just hanging out in the hallway, waiting for somebody to either answer the door, or worse, waiting for somebody to come home. Or, instead they’re down in the building foyer, waiting for anybody to exit through the front door, so they can sneak in.

Let’s just say it’s starting to not become so unusual for us to see cops not just in our building, but on our floor. A couple of times we’ve had them knock on the door wanting to know if we’ve seen anybody suspicious.

OF COURSE WE HAVE!! It’s just that but the time you guys turn up, they’re gone.

Just this past weekend, some woman who was clearly barely able to stand, let alone string a sentence together knocked on our door. I, naturally, just assumed it was the police, so was quite startled when I saw this raggedy woman standing in front of me. I think she asked if it was ‘Larry’s place’, and I’m like… hehehehe… no. On your way, crack-whore.

Turns out she was with a guy and Hulk saw them on his way home on the other side of the road. She was trying to talk to him, and he wasn’t having a bar of it.

Sometimes I think about actually getting to know our neighbours, but then I realise that I really just can’t be fucking bothered. Most people in here generally keep to themselves, but to the point where they don’t even say ‘Hello!’ in the lift if there’s somebody in there. As though they don’t even exist. So to me, yes, organising something like a group BBQ or something would be nice, however, I really don’t care if I never meet our neighbours.

I do however really want to name-and-shame the people who let their dogs pee in the lift.

OH. MY. FUCKING. GOD!!

There is nothing worse that going to get in the lift, and discovering a huge puddle of pee. It gets to the point where all I want to do is hijack the security footage, find out who’s dog it is, soak up all the pee, and throw it it in the face of our dear inconsiderate neighbour. But the reality is, if I were to do that, I’d be the one who ends up in the wrong, but the dog owner is totally okay.  What’s worse is that there’s not even a slight attempt to even clean it up, which drives me nuts. And I don’t mean to point the finger (which, let’s face it, is a complete lie) but it’s only a particular race of people who live here… I’d happily name them, but then I think it becomes racial and offensive to people. ugh. If you’re still not sure who I might be talking about, then they’ll probably bundle their dog up into their Toyota before hitting the road and being a terrible driver. …what? Stereotypes don’t come from nowhere!! Remember that!!

It’s worse when the pee doesn’t get cleaned straight away, and instead ends up completely dried and sticky, and it gets tracked all over the floor in the lift and the foyers because people don’t realise they have stepped into it.

Ironically, we found out purely by chance with our real estate agent, that our building is actually the worst of all the buildings they they manage. Awesome. Part of me wants to look into moving now that our lease is ready for renewal, but I’d only want to stay in this immediate vicinity, just in a different, cleaner building. Without the junkies and the constant dog-pee.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2014/02/08/daily-prompt-neighbors/