Fearmongering in my own building!

I returned home today to find a large note posted to the front door of my apartment building that leads into the stairwell up to the third floor - a door that for the past 35 years has remained propped open except on those rare occasions when the temperatures drop into the 40's....which after North Dakota seems downright burning up.

The note says that due to an increase in crime - where have we heard that before??? - the door will be closed and locked at 6:00pm.

I'm livid and heart-broken. Fuckin fear-mongering in my own building. The second floor is now occupied by new students - at least three in each of the two apartments. Students who are leaving their daddies for the first time in life. Students that are apparently gathering their "facts" from the same place as tRump.

My neighborhood has a reputation amongst white students for being 'unsafe' and rife with Black people - if only...

I pick up my black magic marker and rattle off a quick note on a large piece of hot pink paper: "If you're so fucking scared of my beautiful neighborhood, move to the north (i.e. white) side and bring your fuckin friends with you".

That done, I place the paper inside my desk and start again. I can't imagine where these children have grown up that they don't know about the possibility of 'crime' in the u.s.ofa.

Then I research to find out what has spooked them this time.

So I write:

"This is the u.s.ofa. Armed robberies take place in every corner of the country, including Berkeley. The three young people who committed armed robbery the beginning of February were caught 4 days later. The other two young men were caught the same night.

These young people's lives are and were much more severely impacted than you or I will ever be should someone pull a gun on us on the street and rob us of riches these young people never had access to and never will have access to: the wealth we take as a given - and it is given to us at their expense.

Fear mongering is and always has been rampant in our country, especially revved up now under tRump. You know that no one has ever been robbed in this building, let alone had their apartment broken into & I've been living here 35 years. As fear and hatred is ramped up and "social services" i.e. quality of life, is severely constricted, who knows how long this will be true. But I think closing and locking the front door after decades of it remaining open, only invites trouble, only announces and indicates we have thingws to hoard and fear losing.

My deepest fear is that we will not know it is the theft of our humanity by those powerful and rich that we should fear most - and not the theft of stuff that makes us value things over human beings."