Washington Post: Gated communities breed fear
Edward Blakely, who apparently thinks that guns, not people kill people, writes today in the Washington Post that gated communities killed Trayvon Martin;
Though gates reroute traffic, they do not lower crime. Instead, in these controlled spaces, an “us vs. them” mentality festers: Leaders of gated communities need to show that there is value to their rules by creating an external enemy — those people outside the walls.
Blakely contends that the presence of private security gives residents a false sense of security. No more than having an overbearing TSA at our airport gates, or those rehabbed criminals with guns guarding our Federal buildings in the nation’s capital gives everyone a false sense of security. Is anyone suggesting that we fire the tens of thousands of private security guards that we pay with our tax dollars? Or downgrade security presence at the airport because they’re only engaged in the harassment of travelers which does nothing to improve our security?
The difference of course, is that these gated communities pay out of their pockets for to address their security concerns and the TSA is funded by taxpayer dollars. Blakely, in his last paragraph says this outloud;
We have to work together to reduce crime, poverty and other social problems in our communities — rich and poor, black and white, urban and suburban. If we aren’t hanging out together where we live, we can easily fall apart.
Yeah, well, we’ve been working together to reduce crime for a few thousand years, and it’s working so well that some people feel as if they have to do more. Looking to the future for a perfect crime free society is fine, but those of us who have families today want a more immediate solution.
I wouldn’t live in a gated community because I don’t like people, any people, criminals or not. But if those people who do live in gated communities feel more secure, leave them alone. We all have to do what we feel is necessary to protect our families. And the way that the media is sticking pins in a George Zimmerman doll, can blame anyone for delegating their security concerns to someone else?
This is why OpEd’s are generally worthless; their authors live in a bubble far removed from reality.
Ahh, the Washington Post, searching desperately for a “different” point-of-view, finds another fallacy. It’s hard to be “creative” when all the usual positions are spoken for.
“by creating an external enemy”
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So is this guy saying that all the crime that happened within the past year in that gated community was just “created” by the community?
And how interesting it is that now gated communities are somehow “creating” enemies. Zimmerman has been a neighborhood watch captain for 10 years and nothing like this has happened. But now, when some thug-wannabe attacks him and get killed by someone defending himself from said thug, somehow gated communities are a problem. 1 incident in 10 years.
Brilliant analysis as always by our betters in the MF-ing media…
Gated Communities breed fear? Mr. Blakely obviously never set foot on a military base, which by definition is a gated community and these social woes are really not prevalent to the extent he make them out tot be. This is nothing more than fanning flames. Yes, crime does occur on military bases, petty misdemeanors and felonies but NOT to extent or ratio of those outside the gates. If Blakely actually did his fact checking, he would find that gateed communities have a lower crime rate than those outside, for the residents pay for. As the adage goes, the cops can’t be everywhere when you need them.
We have to work together to reduce crime, poverty and other social problems in our communities — rich and poor, black and white, urban and suburban. If we aren’t hanging out together where we live, we can easily fall apart.
I wonder if he realizes that the community DID work together to reduce crime, etc, and in so doing, decided gates might be a pretty good idea.
Lefties are all about freedom of association, as long as it is association that they approve of.
Truth be known, it was lefties on planning commissions, local revitalization and sustainable living boards that dreamed up these so-called “gated communities”. A mild “Utopia” so to speak complete with home owner associations that tell the residents how their home is going to look, inside and out.
Gated communities, someone ought to mention to him, seem to have been around before Abraham left Ur. They’ve been all the rage since before recorded history.
Instead, in these controlled spaces, an “us vs. them” mentality festers…
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Just hit me that this describes Detroit to a tee. The residents and their elected officials think in terms of “us vs. them” about everything. Us = Detroiters vs. them = suburbs/non-Detroiters. That city is a shithole. And on the one hand, they blame everyone else for their problems and not giving them free handouts and on the other hand, they refuse any and all assistance from the suburbs and non-Detroiters, claiming that they’re just racists who want to enslave the city or some such BS.
And Detroit doesn’t even have to make itself a literal gated community, as they’ve built a figurative gate around the city to keep people away with their racism, crime and murder.
Michael, don’t forget, they’ve been ruled by incompetents for 40+ years now, and look where it’s gotten them. Broke, crime-ridden, and half the city is nothing but burnt-out buildings.
They demand that the rest of the state bail them out, but resist the idea of anyone having oversight of the money, because that’s racist/b>. The so-called leaders in Detroit have proven themselves incapable of governing in a competent manner.
Here is the authors bio and day job. Tells me all I need to know. http://cssd.ucr.edu/About/Blakely.html
I would like to ask what community the writer lives i.
Also one needs to ask if the community that Zimmerman was in which has an extremely high crime rate to the point that it not only warrants but requires a neighborhood watch how effective are those gates really?
This is the same Op-Ed board who opined, “Guns are bad, mkay?” and then had the gent shoot a guy in front of his house.
Got it.