DrewDad wrote:Setanta wrote:DrewDad wrote:Setanta wrote:The Hilltop is an area which an acquaintance of mine once described as "West Virginia West." It is a working class neighborhood filled with drunken spouse and child abusers, crack whores, juvenile delinquents and about any other category of sad people whom one can associate with poverty and ignorance.
Yes, everyone knows that there are no sad upper-class drunken spouses, child abusers, crackheads, or juvenile delinquents.
Given that you know nothing about Columbus, Ohio, your remarks are just the type of sneer which i have learned is typical of you.
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In short, as is so often the case, you're shooting your mouth off, but you don't know what the hell you're talking about.
In short, you've commented on how apparent crime is in a particular neighborhood, while sneering yourself at how it is because it is a poor, working-class neighborhood.
You've made no real contribution to the thread, you've made no valid comparison between this neighborhood and any other, you've provided only anecdotal commentary, you've shown yourself to be a troll and an ass.
Occasionally, your posts rise to the blinding height of compentency. You have not managed that level on this thread.
The only sneers here are coming from you. I'm not sneering at that neighborhood, i just happen to know it intimately. You have no basis for your claim that i have sneered at anyone.
When i first arrived in Columbus, Ohio, i was employed by a family shelter. We were located in a building in the Bottoms, just to the east of the Hilltop. Our white clients came overwhelmingly from the Hilltop and the Bottoms. Our black clients came mostly from the East Main Street neighborhoods, and the neighborhoods east of 19th Street, north and east of Marion Avenue. We worked closely with the police, and were frequently, and sadly, obliged to turn our clients in to the police. We had parents who would disappear from the housing we provided them, leaving minor children in charge of the other children, while they disappear for a day or longer. In early 1989,
The New York Times did a series of articles on crack cocaine, then a newly popular drug, and their series concentrated on Columbus, Ohio--which was then the crack capital of the country.
Driving on shelter business near McDowell street, i saw, on more than one occasion, a crack dealer handing out little vials of crack to his runners, who serviced the neighborhood. If you live in that neighborhood (and i've known many single men who did, because of the cheap housing), you can't walk to the convenience store without passing through the little cluster of crack whores on the corner--the thriteen and fourteen year olds who will give you a blow job if you'll get them a dime of crack. If you are in those neighborhoods late at night, it is common to hear gun fire, sometimes even automatic weapons fire. If you're smart, you don't confront any of the residents in those neighborhoods, because the possibility that they're packin' heat, or have guns at home nearby, is very high.
My boss, the Director of the Family Shelter which employed me, who herself lived in that neighborhood, didn't believe the scope of the problem. So i told her i could show her. We drove over to a convenience store on the corner of McDowell and State, and i walked up the little crowd of pre-schoolers on the street nearby, and jingled the change in my pocket. I told them i had a quarter for each one of them, and they crowded around me. I told them they'd have to help me out, first, though. I asked them which house was the crack house. They all grew very solemn, and, without a word, turned and pointed to the same house in the midst of the housing projects on that block. They knew which house was the crack house, because mom or dad were always to be found there, rather than at home.
I'm not surprised to hear this about the Hilltop neighborhood, because over a period of more than fifteen years, i've worked in and visited that neighborhood repeatedly. It has nothing to do with sneering, it has to do with a realistic attitude.
All i see from you is a series of cheap shots at me. How pathetic on your part. Once again, you don't know what the hell you're talking about.
