Not-so-invisible barriers

First, a caveat: I am not an expert on Baltimore. Don't take what I say as the gospel truth; come here and find out for yourself. Hell, I'll even make you dinner or something if one of my loyal readers visits. This is just my (admittedly limited) observations.

I moved into Pikesville, a suburb on the northwest corner of the city (I'm half a block away from the Bmore city neighborhood of Mount Washington). In the five or six weeks before I finally got a car, I was taking public transit to Hopkins every day. Aside from my rather low opinion of the system itself (precipitating my decision to buy a car), I was somewhat disappointed by some of the things I noticed about the city, particularly with regards to race relations.

Baltimore is roughly two thirds black and one third white (virtually no other ethnicities exist in the city). I imagine the suburbs are a bit more skewed in the direction of whites (or other ethnicities), but that's pretty much the makeup of the city itself. The area from which I picked up a bus and then the Metro (subway) is one of the few predominantly white neighborhoods in the city. Yet oddly, the proportion of white people taking public transit, even from my area, was vanishingly small, confined to students and the occasional downtown professional who didn't care to drive to work (don't get me started on the traffic flow management here...).

This bothered me for a while, and I think I've finally put my finger on why. As far as I can tell, Baltimore has rigid racial boundaries. Any number of children I've spoken to have unconsciously voiced a feeling that the other race was somehow 'other' (both white and black kids, though my sample of white kids was larger). There are extremely few neighborhoods that have any significant amount of racial mixing; even if people live in the same area, they simply don't associate with other races.

And what bothered me about public transit was this: Baltimore's public transit is shitty. It's slow, rarely on schedule, and it can't even get you anywhere (one subway line with 20 or so stops, a light rail akin to Metra from Chicago, and a small and poorly organized bus system). Before I bought a car, I felt trapped I could not use my time effectively to shop, commute, study, etc. It was simply impossible to get to any number of places in and around the city in any decent amount of time (and sometimes not at all).

Now, the alternative to taking public transit is to own a car - but that is an extremely expensive proposition, no? Car insurance rates in Baltimore city are extremely high due to the car theft rate. So that leaves those without the means of buying a car in a bit of a fix.

The black people riding the Metro were not poor, or criminals, or anything else I've heard as stereotypes in the last two months. They were just people trying to get to work or school, like everyone else... but they simply didn't have the means for their own transportation. To me, this highlighted and extremely disturbing financial divide that correllates with racial lines. These people were not from the inner city, yet they still were clearly not as well off as their white counterparts in similar jobs and situations. The abominable state of the Baltimore public transit system exacerbates this problem, splitting the city into 'haves' and 'have nots' in a very recognizable manner.

(I should mention that while I'm sure this happens in every city, it's nowhere near as obvious. In Chicago, vast hordes of people of every stripe take public transit every day, because it gets them to work/school/whatever with a minimum of fuss. It's just that in Baltimore, the cost/benefit analysis is so skewed in favor of cars that the makeup of the population riding the train can be so instructive.)

I found this obervation coupled with other tidbits I picked up here and there to be... disappointing. Why do we have such obvious and rigid racial/economic boundaries? I grew up being taught the credo that people were just people regardless, and should be treated accordingly. On any random street in my neighborhood you could find a dozen nationalities, ethnicities, religions, etc. Why do some places have these sharp divisions? I thought such silliness was a thing of the past.

Now, I can understand the existence of urban ghettos, no matter how I abhor them. But these were normal, middle class, working people. Why do they also need to reap the harvest of our countries' past mistakes?

I think that these glaringly obvious demarcations between the races is the thing that I most dislike about Baltimore. I am sad that situations like this still exist.

Yes, yes, yes. I know. This is rather late in coming.

Let's skip all of the 'where the hell were you for five months's, shall we? It's been a very interesting time. I moved to Baltimore in late August for grad school, and things have been amazingly hectic. First, I was homeless for a week due to school starting before my lease did. Then, I was suffering from internet withdrawal at home because getting broadband takes time. *sighs* And somewhere in there I realized that graduate school is actually supposed to be difficult, and it started taking over my life. Add that to buying an ugly car and racking up amazing amounts of minutes on the phone with the lady, and well... I'm sure you get the idea.

So, there are quite a number of things I'd just love to write about, but I think I'll start with some impressions of Baltimore, in the next post. Stay tuned! I can't say I'll be updating daily, but it might be semi-regular again, for all of you (*cough*) readers.