Well I don’t know what it is about my state exactly, but it seems that the “Minnesota Nice” thing holds true, even in the areas where you’d least suspect it. Even the gangsters here are polite and well mannered. I’ve got three examples for you.
One: The two gang-color wearing, sign-flashing twenty-something kids I heard transition smoothly from a conversation about drug selling, to one about the “bad ass” new ice fishing equipment they just bought. This conversation was held at a dollhouse shop a friend of mine owned. The kids were buying a present for mom.
Two: The two men who just two weeks ago held a gun to my friend Emily’s chest and told her to get in her car. She refused and they quickly assured her they weren’t going to attack her, and just needed some money. “Don’t you even have an ATM card or something?” one was heard to remark. Emily started swearing a blue streak that would put a sailor to shame, and the would-be muggers simply gave up and left. It turns out later that night they did try again with better success.
Three: A friend Dane was living in the sort of neighborhood that you don’t want to be in after dark. A gang fight erupted on his block while he was outside. He found resonable cover and decided to wait it out. Suddenly Dane felt a sharp pain in his leg and screamed. He had been hit on the rebound by a bullet. The gangster who shot him apologized, and one of his opponents said, “Don’t worry, we’ll get him for you”.
I don’t know what this means exactly, but I’m sure it means something
That’s hilarious. I remember several years ago I lived in SoCal and worked in Hawthorne (a suburb of LA). A bunch of us were on a business trip to Iowa and we were talking to our hosts at work one day about the bar we’d visited the night before. Our hosts turned pale and said something to the effect of, “gee, you went into that part of town after dark and came out alive?” We had to laugh. We were living and working in a place where the company had hired armed guards to escort employees to their cars after dark and this neighborhood the locals were so terrified of was a slightly run down but rather quiet place by comparison.
I have always considered where I live to be very safe, even though the crime rate is somewhat high. I think that living in the inner-city does not make it more likely a crime will happen to you, it just brings you closer to the crime. I don’t think I could live in a quiet place, I’d go crazy.
It ain’t all that nice, Seth. Getting through Block E in downtown Minneapolis is to run a gantlet of thugs, thug wannabes, drug dealers and muggers, self-entitled panhandlers and folks that get a kick out of harrassing people just because, and especially if you ain’t a brotha. Block E is ghetto-fabulous.
A few days ago an acquaintance of mine had to step out on the street to pass a row of gangbangers lined up obstructively across the span of the sidewalk of Block E. Just as he passed, one grabbed his arm and demanded money. He refused, and another one grabbed his collar to drag him back. He let fly as best he could with his foot at one mugger’s leg and the mugger lost balance enough so that my friend was able to shake the two off and run for the bus stop a couple of blocks away. Then THEY started hollering for the police.
Not long after, a policeman pulled up to my friend and had him put his hands on the squad car, and asked what happened. My friend told his story (the policeman just wanted to hear his side of it, because he already suspected who was lying), and my friend just made the bus in time.
What chaps my butt is that Block E, a chancre on the face of downtown Minneapolis, isn’t more rigorously patrolled.
Oh, and then there’s Nicollet Mall where the technique is to get at you from the hiding places of store doorways and surround you so no one else can see the pummelling you get for chump change. Believe me, it happens. I’m not afraid of much, and I avoid both those areas especially at night. It’s more prudent that way.
