298 – 307 Detroit and other cities (old book 182-189)
Vincents text
Norsk Ny dansk bog
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I can understand many things about white racism, but to this day it’s
an absolute mystery to me why these whites are moving away from everything
they’ve built up and come to love just because a black family moves into the
neighborhood. These better-off blacks live up to the stodgy white middleclass
demands in every single respect—a well-cut lawn, a hedge, rhododendrons. And
this is what the neighborhood would continue to look like if whites didn’t
flee. At the same time, these blacks have a culture far more American than
that of the European and Asian immigrants whom we immediately accept into our
so-called melting pot. When I lived on the white side of the embarrassing
ghetto fence of For Sale signs, hardly anyone could offer any logic for
moving except the mistaken one about “declining property values,” which only
happens because they all sell out at once. Thus, I experienced it as one
great white American conspiracy to prevent blacks from gaining access to the
melting pot, masterminded through various forms of illegal redlining by the
National Association of Realtors. One reason I myself often had to flee to the
cooler suburbs was the stifling summer temperatures in the red- or rather
heat-lined ghettos, with much concrete and asphalt—up to 20 degrees higher as
the NY Times has since proven—compared to the tree-covered de facto white
neighborhoods. Every time I left, I felt I’d betrayed the black underclass.
For when, with our white privilege, we flee to what become attractive
neighborhoods, house values and assets rise, and we can borrow against our
equity to send our children to expensive universities to get further ahead.
But this is stolen wealth since in this process we cause the housing values
of blacks to collapse in the areas we turn into ghettos, preventing them from
taking out loans secured by their assets, thus making them poorer and poorer.
Through this aversive racism, every white in the ’70s had made themselves six
times richer than every black. Money multiplies, and by year 2000 we’d become
eight times richer. After the tax cuts of the Bush years, 12 times as rich as
each black. And today, after the financial crisis—caused by our racism when
we gave valueless subprime loans to the struggling black middleclass—we’ve
made ourselves 20 times as rich. On the other side of the fence, I experienced every white who moved as
a stab in the heart of the blacks. The older blacks would do everything to
please the whites, but the young ones were far more sensitive. The sudden
feeling of being forever shut out of society’s mainstream—seeing someone
remove the ladder leading to the “American Dream” at the very moment you’re
closer to it than ever—naturally triggers resentment. Sometimes violent. Our
stab in their hearts will change a few of these otherwise well-behaved youths
into mischief-makers, churning up hate for the remaining whites on the ghetto
fringe, who then blame the victim and move. I’m not dealing much in this book with the problems of the
middleclass, but I couldn’t help seeing a direct link between the violence we
commit against the dignity and self-worth of these people on the frontiers of
the ghetto and the violence I experienced in the inner ghettos, between our
white all-American stab in the heart of the black middleclass and the frightening
backstabbing in the underclass. I saw the explosion of black crime in the ’70s as a
result of the irrational anger caused by our white betrayal and
therefore didn’t understand why it declined in the ’90s. Only then did I
understand how this crime wave also was caused by white flight. When the big
oil companies put lead into gas in the 1940s, studies show it started
affecting the brains of developing children, causing increased aggression and reduced impulse control when they became
teenagers. This disproportionately affected the black children whom we’d
forced into unattractive inner-city areas right next to highways and
refineries as seen here in Philadelphia and the Fourth Ward in Houston, where
George Floyd grew up. Moreover, the houses whites left to them were full of
poisonous lead. I often saw children looking incredibly dumb (brain damaged)
or sitting gnawing on lead pipes. And certainly I
saw that generation act out through unbelievable “dumb” violent crime. In the
’70s the United States began to phase out leaded gasoline, and newborns were
steadily exposed to less lead—the reason crime started falling dramatically
20 years later. Thus, I came to understand that the ghetto is a white socially
enforced continuation of chattel slavery’s violent milieu. When this
internalized white violence comes under direct pressure from unemployment,
which is especially severe in Detroit, it explodes in physical violence. Just
as the number of black divorces fluctuates with unemployment, so do murder
and violence against family members. Almost every time I came back to Detroit, more of my black friends had
been killed. This letter to my parents, written during my first months in
America, shows how I immediately sensed the Golgotha-stab of white racism
behind the bleeding of a people on the cross. (or St. John 19, 31-37)
Dear Mom and Dad, This is the most shocking Easter I have ever experienced. I am now in
Detroit, which is nothing less than a night-mare. On
the way from San Francisco I stopped off in Chicago
to visit Denia, the young black writer I lived with at Christmas. Even there
the horrors began. You remember the two girlfriends of hers that she and I
spent so much time with? She told me that one of them, Theresia - that tender,
quiet nineteen-year-old girl - has since been murdered. She was probably
killed by someone she knew, since it seems she opened the door to the
murderers. She was found by her fiancé, shot and cut
up with knives. She was the second person I have known in America who has
been murdered. Denia has now bought a gun and has begun target-practicing.
That night in Chicago I also experienced my first big shoot-out, probably
between police and criminals. We were on a visit on Mohawk Street when it
suddenly broke out down below in the darkness. I tried to look out, but Denia
pulled me away from the window. Well, I have almost forgotten all that, compared with the things that
have happened here in Detroit. First I lived with a
well-off automobile-worker’s family in one of the respectable black
neighborhoods at the seven-mile limit, way out there where the white areas
begin. Their son had picked me up and invited me home - the third black home
I have lived in. Beautiful people. Easter morning
they took me to church. But then I moved into the ghetto itself with three
students, and since then it has been a nightmare. One of the first days I was
here, Thigpen, whom I had just been introduced to, was murdered. He was a
fantastic person, big as a bear, and a poet (I am sending you his collection,
Down Nigger Paved Streets). Apparently for no other reason than that he had
written a harmless poem about the narcotics trade in the city, he was found
the other day executed by narcotics gangsters along with two of his friends.
They were tied up and laid on the floor and shot in the back of the head. But
what shocked me most was the reaction of the three I am living with. One of
them, Jeff, had known Thigpen for years and is photographed with him in a
book. But Jeff just came in calmly with the newspaper one morning saying,
“Hey, you remember this dude, Thigpen, you met the other day? Look, they blew
him away too.” It made no greater impression. This is how they react to all of the violence, which really is getting to me. But
still, they are afraid themselves. It is not only me who is trembling from
fear here. The nights are the worst. I’m beginning to get really
down from the lack of sleep. Jeff and the two others sleep upstairs,
while I stay down in the living room. Every night they shove the refrigerator
in front of the door and put some empty bottles on top, so that any attempt
to open the door will make the bottles fall and wake them up. One night the
cat leaped upon the refrigerator and knocked over the bottles with a crash,
so I shot upstairs to the others. I am a nervous wreck by now and constantly
lie listening for footsteps outside (nobody but robbers dares
to go on foot at night in Detroit as far as I can tell from here). Once in a while I hear shots outside. I have never really
trembled before, but now I sometimes get the same jelly-like sensation as
that night I was mugged in San Francisco. My heartbeat alone is enough to
keep me awake. In fact, I really didn’t think I had closed my eyes once the entire
week, until I suddenly woke up from a terrible nightmare. I almost never dream now when I am traveling, but that night I dreamed
about a sunny day when I was eleven, lying on the living room floor at home
in the parsonage. I was lying there eating oranges, I remember, when the radio
news announced the murder of Lumumba. I didn’t understand anything then, yet
I remember it vividly. This scene I now saw clearly before me in the
nightmare, but it kept changing to another scene somewhere in Africa, where I
was lying on the ground while some Africans fired one machine-gun burst after
another at me. I shouted to them to stop, but the bullets just kept on
drilling into me, a terrible sensation. I woke up to this real Detroit
nightmare, which I now suddenly found quite peaceful in comparison, and a bit
later I managed to get a couple of hours of sleep. But the nightmares are not always over when day breaks. One of the
first days I was there, I ventured out in the streets on foot. Scarcely half
an hour had gone by before a police car with two white cops stopped short and
they called me over to the car. I was almost happy to see white faces again
and walked over. They asked to see my ID. You are constantly being stopped
like this when you walk around in the ghetto. I often ask myself what difference
there really is between being in the ghetto here and being a black in South
Africa, when you must constantly show your identity papers to white
policemen. So almost automatically I stuck my hand down into my shoulder bag
to get out my passport. Immediately the cops’ pistols jumped out right into
my face: “Hold it!” It is a terrible experience to be looking into the muzzle
of a gun, and I began trembling from fear. But nothing happened, they were
just afraid that I had a pistol in my bag. It felt like a miracle that their
guns had not gone off. How can people live in such a world where they have so little trust in
each other? They gave me the usual warning: “You better get yourself or of
this neighborhood quick!” I had regained my self-confidence and answered
audaciously, “I live here!” The longer I live here, the more I look at the
whites with the eyes of the blacks, and I can’t help but harbor an
ever-increasing hatred for them. It is a strange sensation to live in a city like Detroit where you
never see anything but black faces around you. Little by little you undergo a
slow change. The black faces become close and familiar, and therefore warm,
while the white faces seem distant and unknown and therefore cold. In spite of all the horrors, I certainly have no desire to
go out into the cold icy wastes out there where the ghetto stops. So you can probably understand the shock I get each time I
turn on the TV and suddenly see nothing but white faces. Yes, in a strange
way the white faces become a substantial part of the Detroit nightmare. For
it is not only the crime which keeps me awake at night. It’s just as much the
television and the radio. Everywhere in the ghettos of Detroit and Chicago
it’s a habit among the blacks to leave the television and the radio on
throughout the night to make robbers think you are still awake. Another thing
is that they have gradually become so accustomed to sleeping with the TV and
radio on that it has become a kind of narcotic; many of them simply cannot
fall asleep without this noise. I discovered this one day when Denia and I wanted to take a nap in Chicago and she automatically turned on the TV so as to
fall asleep. It is shocking how early some people become addicted to this
noise-narcotic. When lived with Orline, this beautiful young black mother in
Jackson, fifty miles outside Detroit, I discovered that it was almost
impossible for us to live together. When we went to bed
she always turned on the radio. I then lay there waiting for her to fall
asleep, after which I slowly tried to turn down the volume, as otherwise it
was absolutely impossible for me to fall asleep. But
every time I got the volume down to a certain level, it made her two
children, two and three years old, wake up and start crying, so I immediately
had to turn, the volume again. I could only take it for two nights, after
which I had to move. We were simply, as Orline said
“culturally incompatible.” But I think there are terrifying implications if so many blacks in the
urban ghettos are equally dependent on this noise. You quite simply cannot
imagine in Denmark how primitive American radio is: the constant boom-boom
music interrupted every other minute by what they call “messages”. All the
time you hear the soporific message, “Leave the driving to us.” It all feels
like one big white conspiracy against the blacks. Just as they bombed the
South Vietnamese population into “strategic villages” in
order to brainwash it, so it almost seems as if in the USA they have
forced the blacks away from the small villages into these big psychic
concentration camps, where they can better control them with the mass media. It is incredible how as a result of this
oppression they conform almost to the letter to every view of their
oppressors. In the South you could at least think, but here you are
constantly bombarded with what others want you to think - or rather, you are
prevented from thinking. Doesn’t all this music and noise stifle a person’
capacity for independent and intellectual development? Is it strange that
many of these people seem like zombies, as they themselves jokingly call it? The three I live with are some of the few politically active people in
Detroit. Jeff has given me some books about Cuba that he wants me to read.
But it is impossible for me to read in these surroundings, with all the
noise, nervousness, trembling, and fear of something, though you don’t even
know what that something is. Jeff is one of the increasing number of blacks
who have traveled illegally to Cuba through Canada. He tells me so many
fantastic things about it, and I listen, but much of it seems so irrelevant
in these cruel surroundings. He says that Cuba is the first place he has been
able to breathe freely. All the Cubans are armed, just as here in Detroit,
but nevertheless he was never afraid in Cuba. The only thing which
disappointed him was that the Cuban blacks don’t yet have Afro hairstyles. Jeff was so happy in Cuba that he tried everything possible to avoid
being sent back to the U.S., but he was not allowed to stay. Now, after the
trip, he has had problems with the FBI, who twice visited his parents. His
student aid was suddenly cut off and he was expelled from college. He has
therefore become a taxi driver, and goes around in
his own dream world reading books about Cuba in the taxi. He told me laughing
one day that he “held himself up” a few weeks ago. Since taxi drivers are
always being mugged he “stole” $50 from himself,
called the police, and said the robber was black, looked so and so, and ran
in that direction. Then he did not have to work any more
that day and drove out to Belle Isle to read his books on Cuba. Unfortunately, he does not want to use his experiences to work
politically here in Detroit; the system is so massive and oppressive that
it’s no use, he says. So now he is just working to get back to Cuba. He does,
however, want to go to Washington in two days to demonstrate against the
Vietnam war. One million are expected. We will drive down together. I can
hardly wait to get out of this hell, and only hope it is more peaceful in
Washington so I can get some rest. But I have to
come back to Detroit. Just as in Chicago, I have met such warm people here
that I simply cannot fathom their goodness toward me. I cannot understand how
two such cruel and oppressive cities can contain such exceptional people. It has to be possible for me to learn to live with the
ghetto, for I must come back to these people. But it will take me a long time
to get used to the conditions. Just a trip to the corner store in the evening
requires that we take the car. Jeff and the two others simply do not dare to
walk one-and-a-half blocks! I will remember Detroit as an endless gliding drive through a
ghost-town to the sound of the car radio’s newest black hit, “For god’s sake,
give more power to the people,” which is being pounded into my head. And then
every day the newest murder statistics. Since it’s Easter week, only 26
people were murdered. They expect to reach 1,000 before Christmas! More lives
are lost in one year in the civil war here than in six years in Northern
Ireland. Yet in the newspapers, “five people killed in yesterday’s violence
in Detroit” merit only a notice on page 18, while the front
page headlines decry the loss of two lives in Northern Ireland’s
“tragic” civil war. By the way, did the Danish papers write about the
stigmatized black girl, who was bleeding during Easter? Anyway, I hope you have had a more peaceful Easter. With love, Jacob. 304 American ghettos stretch out in thick belts, five to ten miles wide,
around downtown business districts as seen here in Houston, where the rich
live in the city and the poor in slums on the outskirts. The underclass is
constantly being squeezed and pushed around. Urban “removal” (as blacks call
it) - supposedly for the underclass’s benefit, is used to get rid of,
concentrate, or hide our undesirables. This is particularly true in historic
Harlem, from where most blacks today have been pushed. It often made me cry
to see how historic European-looking “slum” neighborhoods were being plowed
under and stood on end, as here in Baltimore’s cozy and charming ghetto. Stacked up, you feel even more confined, and, accordingly, crime increases
proportionately with the height of these vertical slums. In Philadelphia the
street gangs were replaced by floor gangs who struggled floor against floor
with each other—it could mean death to get off the elevator on the wrong
floor. More than 100 street gang members, aged 12 to 17, were killed there
every year. One of them was a local street vendor who made a living selling
my book American Pictures. I had several friends who were held up at gunpoint
by 10- or 11-year-old children who also shoot wildly around with Uzi
submachine guns. By giving them a sentence often twice their age, we whites
hope to have removed a part of the ghetto. In the same futile way, we
demolish the houses in the ghetto without removing the causes of the ghetto.
Though five out of six housing-code violations in slums are proven to be from
the neglect of landlords, not their despairing tenants, the blame-the-poor
myth that “people cause slums” persists. A couple of slumlords I lived with
in huge mansions outside the cities were certainly helpful in spreading such
ideas. 306 It’s a paradox that we always look for the cause of the ghetto inside
the ghetto itself, when it’s implied in the very concept of “ghetto” that the
causes are to be found outside. Especially in the affluent white suburbs
encircling every city. Here we have trees, swimming pools, and every
opportunity to thrive in the world. We live outside the city limits so our children won’t have to go to school with
undesirables, and we avoid paying taxes to the city although we get our
income from it. Thus, cities have become poorer and poorer. A typical city,
like Washington DC, is similar in this respect to the city we all live in—the
world city. The centers of both cities are 80% slums inhabited by people of
color, and around them we’ve put the lavish suburbs of Europe, USA, Japan,
China, and Australia. Suburbanites own most of the businesses inside the
ghetto and bring home huge profits but refuse to pay taxes to the city. Like
the ghetto of the world, Washington is getting poorer and poorer, and we need
to send developmental aid to give back a little of what we took. Although the net flow of capital out of poor countries is greater than
what we return, most of us are convinced that we’re generous and so resent
the rising anger and terrorism against the West in the Third World. Our
ignorance is often expressed in our choice of leaders, such as Trump, who
goes it alone against all other nations, refusing to recognize the need to
repay some of the huge profits from unequal trade agreements, loans,
underpriced raw materials, climate destruction, and tax havens. Similarly, we’re unable to understand the Black Lives Matter anger of
our ghettos—we’re unaware of life in our own capital just outside its
beautiful cherry-blossoming tourist areas. During my first trip in the 1970s,
Washington, capital of the world’s richest country—was treated as a
hunger-emergency district. Since the 1980s, the city has mostly resembled a
civil-war zone, with drug wars in the streets unequalled outside the Third
World. The crime we fear from poor countries, especially in the form of
terrorism, has long since become commonplace in DC, which had over 2,000%
more armed robberies a year than similar cities in Europe. The number of
murders in Washington was 50% higher than in the whole of Britain (as I wrote
in the 1984 edition of this book). But today, as the children of our outcasts
in Europe have begun to grow up, the picture is changing. England has now
overtaken the United States in robberies. One out of ten inhabitants in black areas of the city was a drug addict (as reported one year by Washington
Post). These two addicts, who attacked me but later invited me home, live
only three blocks from the Capitol, whose white dome can be seen in the
background. Although members of Congress dare not go on foot to their homes
after work, they continue to increase military expenditures in their paranoid
fear of the rest of the world while making cuts in social appropriations. Of
what use is the bulletproof vest when death comes from the heart? A month before
I lived with these addicts, a cop was shot in their hallway, and a woman was
murdered in this very room—the last glimpse she got of this stronghold of
democracy and freedom. |
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Jeg kan forstå mange ting ved hvid racisme, men det er mig stadig et
absolut mysterium, hvorfor disse hvide flytter væk fra alt det, de har
opbygget og lært at elske, bare fordi en sort familie flytter ind i
nabolaget. For disse bedrestillede
sorte lever nemlig i enhver henseende op til det firkantede, hvide middelklassekrav
om en velklippet græsplæne, en hæk,
rododendroner. Og sådan ville kvarteret fortsat se ud, hvis de hvide ikke
flygtede. Samtidig har disse sorte en
kultur, der er langt mere amerikansk end de europæiske og asiatiske
immigranters, som vi straks
accepterer i vores såkaldte smeltedigel.
Når jeg boede på den hvide side af det pinlige ghettohegn af ”Til Salg”-skilte, kunne de i reglen ikke komme med nogen
logiske argumenter for at flytte, ud over det komplet uacceptable om
”faldende ejendomsværdier,” som
kun sker, fordi de alle sælger ud på én gang. Således oplevede jeg det som én stor hvid sammensværgelse for at
forhindre de sorte i at få adgang til smeltediglen, og den amerikanske
ejendomsmæglerforening (N.A.R.) som hjernen bag det hele med dens ulovlige ”redlining”.
For hver hvid, som flyttede, oplevede jeg
derfor på den anden side af hegnet et stik i hjertet på de sorte. De ældre
sorte ville gøre alt for at behage de hvide, men de unge var langt mere
sensitive. Den pludselige
følelse af at blive lukket for evigt ude af samfundets hovedstrøm – at se nogen fjerne stigen op
til ”den amerikanske drøm",
i det øjeblik man er tættere på den end nogensinde – udløser naturligt nok voldsom vrede. Vores kniv i hjertet vil forvandle nogle få
af disse ellers velopdragne unge til ballademagere, der opildner hadet til de
resterende hvide i ghettoranden, som så giver ofret skylden og flytter. Jeg beskæftiger mig ikke meget i denne bog
med middelklassens problemer, men jeg kunne ikke undgå at se en direkte forbindelse mellem den vold,
vi begår mod værdigheden og selvfølelsen hos disse nybyggere ude på randen af
ghettoen, og den vold jeg oplevede i de indre ghettoer; mellem vores hvide
stik i hjertet på den sorte middelklasse og de rystende nedstikninger bagfra
i underklassen.
300 Johannes 19, 31-37
Dette er den mest rystende
påske, jeg nogensinde har oplevet. Jeg er nu kommet til Detroit, som er intet
mindre end rædslernes by. På vejen fra San Francisco gjorde jeg ophold i
Chicago for at besøge Denia, den unge sorte forfatterinde, jeg boede hos i julen.
Allerede dér startede rædslerne. I husker de to veninder, hun havde, som vi
tilbragte megen tid sammen med. Nu fortalte hun, at den ene, Theresia – denne
blide, stilfærdige, 19-årige pige – i mellemtiden var blevet myrdet. Hun er
muligvis blevet dræbt af bekendte, da hun sandsynligvis selv har åbnet døren
til lejligheden for morderne. Hun blev fundet af sin forlovede, skudt og
sprættet op med knive. Det er det andet menneske, jeg har kendt i USA, som er
blevet myrdet. Nu har Denia købt en pistol og er begyndt at gå til
skydeøvelser. I øvrigt oplevede jeg den nat i Chicago det første større
skyderi, sikkert mellem politi og kriminelle. Vi var på besøg i Mohawk
Street, da det pludselig begyndte lige nedenfor i mørket. Jeg prøvede at
komme til at se ud, men Denia trak mig væk fra vinduet. Påskemorgen tog de mig med i
kirke. Men så flyttede jeg ind i selve ghettoen hos tre studenter, og siden
da har det været et mareridt. Allerede en af de første dage jeg var her, blev
Thigpen, som jeg lige nåede at blive introduceret
for, myrdet. Han var et fantastisk menneske, stor som en bjørn, og en kendt
digter (jeg sender jer hans digtsamling ”Down, nigger, paved
streets”). Åbenbart uden anden grund end at han havde skrevet et uskyldigt
digt om narkotikahandelen i byen, blev han forleden henrettet af narkotikagangstere
sammen med to af sine venner. De blev bagbundet og lagt på gulvet og skudt i
nakken. Men det, der chokerede mig mest, var reaktionen hos de tre, jeg bor
hos. En af dem, Jeff, havde kendt Thigpen i årevis
og er fotograferet sammen med ham uden på bogen. De var de bedste venner. Men
Jeff kom blot roligt en morgen med avisen til mig og sagde: ”Hey, you remember this dude, Thigpen,
you met the other day? Look, they blew him
away too.” – Større
indtryk gjorde det ikke. Sådan er deres reaktion på al den vold, som virkelig
går mig på. Alligevel er de selv bange for den. Det er ikke blot mig, der
ryster af skræk her. Nætterne er de værste. Jeg er ved at gå til af mangel på
søvn efterhånden. Jeff og de to andre sover ovenpå, mens jeg selv bor nede i stuen.
Hver nat skubber de køleskabet hen foran døren, og de har stillet nogle tomme
flasker ovenpå, således at forsøg på at åbne døren vil få dem til at falde
ned og vække dem ovenpå. En nat hoppede katten op på køleskabet og væltede
flaskerne med et brag, og jeg for op ovenpå til de andre. Jeg er i den grad
et nervevrag efterhånden og ligger konstant og lytter efter fodtrin udenfor
(ingen andre end røvere færdes til fods i Detroit). Af og til hører man skud
udenfor. Jeg har aldrig prøvet at skælve før, men nu får jeg sommetider den
geleagtige fornemmelse, som den nat jeg blev overfaldet i San Francisco.
Alene den hjertebanken, jeg har, er nok til at holde mig vågen. Jeg troede
faktisk slet ikke, at jeg havde lukket et øje en eneste gang hele ugen, før
jeg pludselig vågnede af et frygteligt mareridt. Jeg drømmer næsten aldrig
nu, hvor jeg rejser, men den nat drømte jeg pludselig om en solskinsdag, hvor
jeg som 11-årig lå hjemme på dagligstuegulvet i præstegården. Jeg lå og
spiste appelsiner, husker jeg, da radioavisen meddelte mordet på Lumumba. Jeg
forstod intet dengang, men husker det dog tydeligt. Denne scene så jeg nu
klart for mig i mareridtet, men hele tiden blev den flænget væk og skiftede
til en anden scene et eller andet sted i Afrika, hvor jeg lå på jorden, mens
nogle afrikanere sendte den ene maskinpistolsalve efter den anden imod mig.
Jeg råbte, at de skulle stoppe, men kuglerne blev blot ved med at bore sig
ind i mig, en frygtelig oplevelse. Jeg vågnede op til dette virkelige
Detroit-mareridt, som jeg nu pludselig fandt helt fredeligt i sammenligning,
og lidt senere lykkedes det mig at få et par timers søvn. Men mareridtene er
ikke altid slut, når dagen kommer. En af de første dage vovede jeg mig ud på
gaden til fods. Der var ikke gået en halv time, før en politibil med to hvide
betjente brat standsede op og kaldte mig hen til
bilen. Jeg var næsten glad over at se hvide ansigter igen og gik derhen. De
bad blot om at se mine identitetspapirer. Sådan bliver man hele tiden
standset, når man færdes i ghettoer. Jeg spørger tit mig selv, hvilken
forskel der egentlig er på at være sort her og sort i Sydafrika, når man hele
tiden må vise identitetskort til hvide betjente. Så næsten automatisk stak
jeg hånden ned i skuldertasken for at finde mit pas frem. Straks røg de to
betjentes pistoler lige op i ansigtet på mig: ”Hold it!” Det var en frygtelig
oplevelse at kigge ind i en pistolmunding, og jeg begyndte at ryste af skræk.
Men ellers skete der ikke noget; de var bare blevet bange for, at jeg havde
en pistol i tasken. Det føltes som et mirakel, at deres pistoler ikke var
gået af. Hvordan kan mennesker leve i en sådan verden, hvor de ikke har mere
tillid til hinanden? De gav mig den sædvanlige advarsel: ”Vil du se at komme
ud af dette nabolag hurtigst muligt!” Jeg havde genvundet min selvtillid og
svarede blot frækt: ”Jeg bor her!” – Jo længere jeg bor her, jo mere ser jeg
på de hvide med de sortes øjne, og jeg kan ikke lade være med at nære et
stadigt stigende had til dem. Det er en mærkelig fornemmelse at bo i en by
som Detroit, hvor man aldrig ser andet end sorte ansigter omkring sig. Der
sker en langsom forvandling med en. De sorte ansigter bliver nære og
velkendte og derfor varme, mens de hvide virker fjerne og ukendte og derfor
kolde. På trods af alle rædslerne har jeg aldeles ingen lyst til at tage ud i
de kolde isørkener derude, hvor ghettoen holder op. Så I kan nok forstå det
chok, man får, hver gang man tænder for fjernsynet og så pludselig ser
udelukkende hvide ansigter. Ja på en mærkelig måde bliver de hvide ansigter
en væsentlig del af Detroit-mareridtet. Det er nemlig ikke blot
kriminaliteten, der holder mig vågen om natten. Det er i lige så høj grad
fjernsynet eller radioen. Det er nemlig overalt i ghettoerne i Detroit og
Chicago skik hos de sorte at lade fjernsynet eller radioen gå natten igennem
for at lade røverne tro, at man stadigvæk er vågen. Noget andet er så, at man
efterhånden er blevet så vænnet til at sove med musik og TV, at det er blevet
en slags narkotika for folk; de kan simpelthen ikke falde i søvn uden denne
støj. Jeg opdagede det en dag, da Denia og jeg ville tage os en middagslur i
Chicago, og hun så automatisk tændte for fjernsynet for at falde i søvn. Det
er rystende, så tidligt de bliver afhængige af denne støjnarkotika. – Da jeg boede sammen med Orline, denne
smukke unge sorte mor i Jackson, 80 km uden for Detroit, opdagede jeg, at det var os næsten umuligt at bo sammen. Når vi
gik i seng, tændte hun altid for radioen. Jeg lå så og ventede på, at hun
faldt i søvn, hvorefter jeg langsomt prøvede at skrue lyden ned, da det
ellers var mig totalt umuligt at falde i søvn. Men hver gang jeg nåede ned
til en vis lydstyrke, skete der altid det, at hendes børn på to og tre år
vågnede og begyndte at græde, så jeg straks måtte skrue lyden op igen. Jeg
holdt til det i to nætter, hvorefter jeg måtte flytte. Vi var simpelthen, som
Orline sagde ”culturally incompatible”.
Kærlig hilsen Jacob.
306
Hver tiende indbygger i de sorte områder af byen er narkoman,
rapporterede Washington Post et år. Disse to narkomaner, som først overfaldt
mig, men siden inviterede mig hjem, boede kun tre husblokke fra kongressen,
hvis hvide kuppel ses i baggrunden. Selv om kongresmedlemmerne ikke tør gå til fods hjem efter arbejde,
fortsætter de med at øge militærudgifterne i deres paranoide frygt for resten
af verden, samtidig med at de skærer ned på de sociale bevillinger derhjemme.
Hvad nytter den skudsikre vest, når døden kommer fra hjertet? En måned før
jeg boede sammen med disse misbrugere, blev en betjent skudt i deres opgang,
og en kvinde blev myrdet i netop dette rum - det sidste glimt hun fik af
denne højborg af demokrati og frihed. |