Question because I'm just halfway familiar with the geography - what are the regions of the Bronx that are really dangerous? I just spend two weeks in the Bronx in January because my BF moved there from the west coast, which is has aspired to do for years. He is black/korean and I'm white, and his family is white rural mennonite culture (which is almost the same situation for a housemate of mine), and on one level he has had issues with 'authenticity' living in suburban and small town areas, (but he's not that simple or superficial about it). But he is at the Bedford park subway stop area around 197th. I was comparing back and forth where I am in the bay area - it is way too expensive to rent around here, even in the neighborhoods around schools such as McClymonds high that are ranked lowest in the state, and there is a lot of street level crime - people who will assault you on a bicycle etc. Where I am in Berkeley, there is a really high density of homeless on my block. But in his neighborhood in the Bronx, everyone is clearly poorer - yet with a much smaller gap between rich and poor, and everything felt much safer and there were no visible homeless and we felt fine about walking at any time of night. But with many black friends of mine who grew up in poor or working class urban areas, they really react strongly to the white low-income-by-choice attitude of going into dangerous areas and acting as though there is absolutely no problem, and acting as though anyone who sees a problem must be racist. My friend Bill has real problems with white hipsters who flaunt visible 'degenerate' habits or attitudes such as drug use or saying there is zero problem with prostitution, because it's like saying that not white residents of the neighborhood embrace these things equally.
I love the Bronx mennonites. They have an absolute pacifist tradition extending back to the 1500s and they're against displays of the flag, and the flag salute, and they can be so startlingly brash about expressing this attitude within NY after September. Christine
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