Louisville has been the site of some unprecedented experiences. I have been thinking about saying something on this blog that would both add to the cohesion and quality of life in the neighborhood and speak to the current social unrest. I am going to try to do both and it goes like this:
You won't know if your neighbor bites until you go
and see if your neighbor bites?
You won't know if your neighbor bites until you go
and see if your neighbor bites?
As I was going through Kroger today pondering the times we live in and the events of the weekend, it came to me that we are isolating from each other as people and the isolation is proving to estrange us from each other. I also was pondering the iconic line from Martin Luther King's 1963 speech,
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a
nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin,
but by the content of their character.”
I have my opinion of NFAC coming to Louisville and going marching eastbound on Jefferson Street (and I hope they stayed in local hotels and ate at local restaurants to help the economy). As an academic, I also have asked what further purposes the ongoing demonstrations downtown are really serving, but it takes me back to a question I repeatedly asked in MSW school in the early 1990's and my doctoral program back in the early 2000's: what am we supposed to do about it?
Maybe I am doing something by writing this post, and maybe I might just be stirring more drama, and my answer continues to be:
You won't know if your neighbor bites until you go
and see if your neighbor bites?
We live in a time where the social unrest is amplified more than escalated because of the unintended social effects of the COVID-19 policies (isolation and shutting down of the economy). I am not minimizing the deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd among the other distinctive incidents, but I am willing to stick my neck out to make about the statement on the current social unrest by noting that the social distancing has made the social unrest seem more unsolvable. I think that we can begin to address this by going and meeting our neighbors and seeing if our neighbors bite.
BANA was going to have a "National Night Out" next week for people to meet their neighbors as a way to enhance crime prevention. The best way to prevent crime in your neighborhood is to know your neighbor. Which takes me back: Do we know each other? But the COVID-19 situation makes it seem to be not such a good idea.
Moving on, I have repeatedly had the conversation with others over the years as a social worker where I have told patients of different ages, you do not know what a person is life unless you talk to them and get to know them. The color of the skin or gender does not tell you about a person's character, and I go back to
and see if your neighbor bites?
Prior to before COVID-19 the United States and maybe Canada and most modern societies have already been social isolating thanks to our modern conveniences. We have not necessarily gotten to know our neighbors because we are more interested in locking ourselves in and binge-watching something on any one of several streaming services. We can do it all in the privacy of our air-conditioned residences.
However, our sense of convenience doesn't feel as good because we cannot conveniently go out the way we used to in order to do what we want. The current social unrest is significant but I think that its emotional effect is amplified because we are all isolated from each other thinking our thoughts and losing connection with reality despite being able to see all about it on our screens.
We also do not come to our doors as much because we have doorbell cameras where we can see who is there without coming to the door. Good for crime prevention, not so much for talking to your neighbor. However again, we are isolating from each other.
I do think that the current social unrest will run its course. I do not have any solutions for those continuing to be out there protesting, because the court system is the court system and due process is not going to be sped up by their blocking NULU or the Second Street Bridge. My gut tells me that they will continue to protest until life calls them to other tasks, college goes back into session, and maybe media attention moves to the presidential election.
For the here and now in the Bon Air Neighborhood, I think that the best action we can take is to get out and know each other (wear masks of course) because
You won't know if your neighbor bites until you go
and see if your neighbor bites?
and see if your neighbor bites?
If you are not a social butterfly you can find a little cheat sheet to help you learn who your neighbors are at /https://jeffersonpva.ky.gov/ . Type in your street name in and you can see who owns the other houses on your block. The limitation is that if the house is a rental, you are going to go in blind, but here is a suggested "script."
Hello, I'm your neighbor _________________ and I just wanted to meet you.
That can be the start of the relationship. You may find that the neighbor is guarded and keeps to themselves or that they have a lot to talk about. As neighbors are individuals, there is no guarantee you and your neighbor will have anything in common. But at least you have learned whether your neighbor bites.
In the end the Bon Air Neighborhood is a better place if neighbors know neighbors, and would be doing something on the way to improved race relationships in our area of Louisville.
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