STEVEN WEISSMAN

Comments

1

Because, really, neighborhoods should be strictly racially segregated.

4

You need a lesson on composting. It isn’t throwing bits of food on the ground. If everyone threw their paper, banana peels, peach pits, etc., wherever, we’d be over run with garbage and rats.

5

1: Nobody was saying THAT. There's a massive difference between black or brown people moving into a historically white neighborhood-all historically white neighborhoods being that way solely due to racist intent a history built on "restrictive covenants", a twisting of the legal system, and at times police brutality, designed to hold other people down and reduce their circumstances to less-since people of color who do that do so solely to give their kids a chance at a better life, not harming anyone or anything in doing so-and rich white people gentrifying a historically POC neighborhood-neighborhoods which always existed as a defense mechanism against white supremacy-coming in to take advantage of low purchase prices, whose intention is solely to drive POC and the poor out of the neighborhood, erase it's social, political, and creative history, and reduce that neighborhood to yet another bland, characterless, creativity-free suburb where you're never more than two blocks from a Caramel Macchiato.

It would be different if white people coming into a historically POC neighborhood would agree to not be part of driving POC out, or of destroying its character-if they'd agree to NOT be the rich white woman who just moved into the historically black church in the Hilltop in Tacoma and put a big notice on the sermon board out front that said "This Is NOT A Church!", as opposed to going door-to-door, introducing herself to the neighbors, and asking them how she could make her presence in the neighborhood a force for good rather than a part of the process of race and class cleansing.

6

It was a peach pit. Even if it did land on somebody's lawn, so what? Worst case scenario? A peach tree on your property in ten years. How is that a bad thing?

7

Peaches are so messy. I stick to eating M&Ms.

8

This might be the most Seattle thing I've ever read.

Someone getting pissy about being called out on their littering, trying to justify throwing garbage food anywhere is composting, thinking up some bullshit white-guilt whaddabout comeback but being too much of a wimp to actually say it, and finally stewing on the event long enough to feel the need to type up the episode here without any sense of irony or shame.

9

Let's imagine a white middle class middle age guy (like me) walking through my mostly white and asian, pleasant but not ostentatious neighborhood. (Think parts of Beacon Hill or West Seattle) As I pass by the yard of a black neighbor out carefully tending her yard, I make a point of tossing my garbage (compostable or not), into her yard where she can see it. My intent is clearly to insult her and provoke a racially tinged confrontation and make sure she knows she is unwelcome here. All readers here will agree that I am being a racist prick, yes? So why is the difference between me and Mr. anonymous?

Also, #5: Please work on your punctuation and sentence structure. Respect is a two way street.

10

thank you for feeding the rats

11

Charles, is that you?

12

Hey My Bumhole is Tiffany Blue – if you offered me a blue M&M, I wouldn’t eat it. Unless it was the peanut type.

13

"... the vacuous politics of most white, middle-class liberals in Seattle, after all: militant about recycling, consumer choices, voting for corporate Democrats, but little else..." --LW

Ouch.

14

@5- You seem to be pretty sure of the motive that makes a white person move into a historically POC neighborhood ("coming in to take advantage of low purchase prices, whose intention is solely to drive POC and the poor out of the neighborhood, erase it's social, political, and creative history, and reduce that neighborhood to yet another bland, characterless, creativity-free suburb where you're never more than two blocks from a Caramel Macchiato.")

Perhaps they, too, are simply moving into a neighborhood that they can afford (white people are getting squeezed by high housing prices too, you know). They, too, may be "trying to give their kids a chance at a better life" (i.e., so that they don't have to grow up in the suburbs). I really don't know that they ought to be vilified for that.

Also, congrats on possibly the longest sentence ever published in the Stranger.

15

Ah, the eternal self-righteous victimhood-entitled attitude of the author. And the self-righteous attitude of the nanny observer. Both parties are full of themselves. Now if it had been actual trash, I'd have a different take: I don't buy the my-people-were-victimized-forever-and-it's-our-cultural-prerogative-to-toss-trash-wherever. I have that in my neighborhood and it is not cool. There's a difference between people and trash-tossing people, and it doesn't matter what ethnicity or persuasion... You throw trash, you weren't raised right.

16

Ah yes! Decency-shaming. "Stop expecting me to behave like a decent person and do things like not litter - it's discrimination! How dare you!"

17

Every shithead with a phone needs to take a big drink of MIND YOUR OWN FUCKING BUSINESS.

18

Wow, all this kerfuffle over a peach pit but no one's complaining about the nukes stored near Puget Sound or the waste produced by Washington's legal cannabis industry.

Badly mismanaged priorities to say the least.

19

Reading this was like watching a bratty toddler have a meltdown over being told to put away the toys - what a tiresome twit.

20

Also, the author is a racist little shit.

21

two mouthy jerks arguing composting vs. littering. is it really any wonder that much of the world looks at events in seattle, portland, san francisco etc. in stunned disbelief?

23

14: OK, the sentence was long. Fair enough on that point. But here's the thing: even if a white person moves into a historically POC neighborhood solely due to low home prices, that person's presence is going to be economically and socially disruptive to that neighborhood and its identity, in ways that a POC family moving into a historically white neighborhood would never be.

If a white person has to move in, that person has a particular obligation to understand the place she or he is moving into. That person needs to make sure their presence doesn't cause people already living in that neighborhood to be forced out. There is a heritage of survival in all POC neighborhoods that anyone who enters them as a non-POC has a duty to study and a duty not to do harm to. Can everybody live with that thought?

Look what has happened to Rainier Valley. Everything unique, creative, poetic and authentic is being replaced with soulless high-end coffee shops owned by people in Bellevue or someplace like that.

Is it asking too much for white people moving to a POC neighborhood to be conscious of the place they are moving to, to make a real effort to connect with and treat with respect those already there, and, in all possible ways, to do no harm?

24

And again...why make such a big deal over a freaking peach pit? It's organic. Worst case scenario is that it takes root in your yard and you get free peaches in ten years. Shouldn't you be THANKING the guy for that?

25

Forget the damn peach pit. How many woefully ignorant, proud NRA card carrying gun-totin', fetus dotin', and bible misquotin' MAGA capped Trumpists out there are dropping kids like flies, hellbent on starting a new race of apocalyptic idiots?
@24 AlaskanbutnotSeanParnell: My point exactly. Thank you.

26

The word "historically" shouldn't be used anymore. Something that was 30+ years ago has no bearing on the neighborhood today. As those that live there today, only care about what the neighborhood is now. We live in the present, not in the 70's.

27

26: We never live exclusively in the present. History always shapes the present. Despite what a lot of right-wing Americans think, you can't just erase the effects on history and treat the present as if it is disconnected from anything else that went before it-anymore than you can treat this country as a thing disconnected from everything else in the world and officially exempt from the need to address the generally unnecessary injustices inflicted in this country's creation and development. We are always connected to everything around us and to each other.

28

Your statement "History always shapes the present" is very much true. But, I think that the new residents of the past 5 years don't see it that way. Most turn away from the past. And seem only concerned about their Present and Future in what they now consider to be Their Neighborhood.

29

@27, Your statement " History always shapes the present" is very much true. But, the new residents of the past 5 years don't seem to see it that way. They are more concerned with their own Present and Future. Than to worry about someone else's past. They don't have that 'Historical' connection that current residents of bygone generations have.

30

WOW! I thought my #28 post got Bonked. So I re-posted. I guess it went through after all.

31

28: I'm aware of that. But that isn't something that has to be left unchallenged. People can be taught that their Present and Future are affected by the Past and Present and affects all those around, and that they need to know the Past and the Present to avoid harming the Present and Future of others. We all have an obligation to at least trying to avoid harming each other.

32

Being neat and orderly is not gentrification. If it is, then that is point worthy of some deep thought. As for the nitwit litterbug who tried his/her best (and failed) to justify dropping crap in the grass, may he/she step onto peach pits with bare feet on his/her next trip to the park to discover what's really wrong with what s/he did. Also, how about cutting down on the racism! Your critic was right regardless of his/her skin color. Also, if it's ok to dump biodegradables in the grass, I hope someone takes a nice, healthy shit in the litter bug's front yard.

34

"the world looks at events in seattle, portland, san francisco etc. in stunned disbelief"

Oh. Yes. THE WORLD! The entire WORLD just is consumed with what is happening in our coastal liberal cities!

Or maybe it's just you, dumbfuck. Just you.

35

feckless media is the point

36

@23 - I see your point that one should not be a dick wherever one moves, but you are still pretty close to arguing that white people should not move into certain neighborhoods ("if a white person has to move in . . .").

Keeping neighborhoods segregated is not a recipe for good relations, as anyone who grew up in an essentially all-white suburb (I did) can tell you. For one thing, it makes it much harder to ensure that kids go to schools in mixed-race environments. I feel like that is important and would go a long way towards increasing understanding and decreasing prejudices. The more segregated housing is, the harder that is to do. Remember what happened when they tried to bus kids? People with the means to do so moved, so their kids didn't have to spend hours commuting. That is unproductive socially but a totally rational decision on the parents' part.

For another, keeping "POC neighborhoods" from changing holds property values down if it is done by discouraging people from moving into those neighborhoods. Yes, that holds rents down, but it also prevents the homeowners in those neighborhoods from benefiting from the rise in values that we are seeing area-wide. Home ownership is a big way that a lot of white households starting accumulating wealth (I don't know the numbers on this, but based on the people I know it is a large fraction). Do we want to wall off certain parts of town from being able to take advantage of that?

37

What was this whitey doing walking through the CD in the first place if they didn't live there?

38

@26:

If your assertion is true, then why do so many white people get their boxers in a knot these days over things that happened 150 years ago?

Also, if dropping a peach pit onto a lawn is such an egregious form of littering, am I allowed to harangue the squirrels that drop walnut husks in my back yard? What about the seagulls that drop clam shells? Or the trees that drop their own overly ripe fruit? I mean, that's what we're talking about, right? Organic beings dropping the remnants of other organic organisms onto still more organic bio-matter? Where is the line here?

40

In short: busted litterbug goes ad hominem.

Also, throwing a peach pit into grass probably won't germinate the seeds inside of it, nor will it break down during this administration, but it will launch out the side of a lawnmower at 150mph.

41

Or some kid is going to step on that peach pit while running barefoot through the grass. And that's going to HURT like hell.

Throw your stupid peach pit in the trash or a compost bin like a normal human being. It really isn't that complex.

44

@40 - I'd like you to show your math.

45

40: Ok. But Anon offered to pick it back and dispose of it some other way. Why couldn't Lawn Dude let it go at that? Why insist on ripping him a new one over what was clearly an innocent, trivial mistake?

46

It's not as Lawn Dude wasn't just as capable of absentmindedly throwing a peach pit on somebody else's lawn. It's a minor mistake anyone could make and we've ALL done something like that. He didn't deserve to be humiliated over it. And it's weird that people are chewing Peach Guy out in this thread over what he THOUGHT about Lawn Dude.

47

A passive aggressive and weak litterer who is also racist and clearly very stupid.

What a charmer anonymous must be.

48

@47:

Sez one of SLOG's least charming anonymous trolls...

50

Both sides are correct. A peach pit is not worth hassling someone over, but it's still better to throw it in a compost bin.

My how we love to ruminate over the silliest stuff.

51

@44 The projectile velocity or peach pit breakdown timeline? I'm afraid my notes may have been placed in the proper trash receptacle by mistake.

@45 Because everyone in this story sucks?

52

My version of this article shows the title has been changed, a whole lot. Are we sensoring the Anonymous articles like the comments? Time to ask Fox News for advice.

53

@21: Or you could always go back to Chicago.

54

@52: Um, no thanks. Fox isn't a reliable news source. Nor is Sinclair.

55

@53 i think i'll stay, auntie. i came for the repartee. "go back to chicago" is a classic. thanks.

56

So Anonymous was being a thoughtless jerk, then used racial guilt to excuse his littering. Classy. The neighbor was being a passive aggressive, self-righteous jerk, and should have just said yes, please use the compost. Uptight Seattle person. This whole scene is very Seattle.

57

@55: Seriously--you sound discontented no matter where you live.

58

@57: well, why do we think he ESCAPED from Chicago?

59

@58 Alaskanbutnot SeanParnell: Um....because escapefromchicago is @55's login name? Because possibly @55 is locationally discontented no matter where he / she lives, proving my point......? Maybe @55 was hoping to get away from idiots like the MAGA hat wearing imbecile who recently came all the way out here from the Windy City to Seattle to deliberately stir up trouble? It amazes me how many people flock here to the PNW because it's so beautiful and desirable a part of the world, and then once here do nothing but gripe about the weather, city and state legislature, traffic, housing, affordability--or lack thereof, etc.

60

@23 "Is it asking too much for white people moving to a POC neighborhood to be conscious of the place they are moving to, to make a real effort to connect with and treat with respect those already there, and, in all possible ways, to do no harm?"

My question to you is: why would you assume that most people don't already do this anyway? I've lived in many locales, among many demographics. In my experience, this tends to be the norm. It probably doesn't have quite as much to do with race as you're pretending it does. If the people you know aren't doing this ever, may I suggest new friends/neighbors?

61

61: Because in my experience, too many of them haven't-too many have come in and seen the neighborhood they've moved as a place that now exists mainly FOR them-that if they've been able to afford to buy a house, they should matter more than the people who are being driven away by rent hikes and the other forms of gentrification, that they have no obligation to make sure their arrival doesn't force the departure of others who were there first. I didn't say that none of those who showed up in a neighborhood like that have tried to be conscious; rather, I said that far too few have.


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