We live in a(n) (Un)Safe Neighborhood.
Our beloved Aurora stepped into the next chapter of her life last month after sending her youngest off to his first year away at college. She and her husband put their home on the market, sold, and packed up to move to their new home in Austin, Texas.
Naturally, we wanted to send them off in style, so we planned a going away party for the ages. Our dear friend, Radhi, offered to host the event in her home, just around the corner from Kelly’s house in Villanova, PA. Radhi and her husband have a beautiful finished basement where we schmoozed during cocktail/mocktail hour and danced while dinner was served upstairs on a beautiful kitchen island adjacent to a backyard buzzing with cheerful conversation.
The cherry on top was the Milk + Sugar Sweets Truck parked in the driveway serving up delicious cupcakes, loaf cakes, cookies, and brownies. They’re a Black-owned, women-owned, local-to-Philadelphia business, FYI, as were the bartenders and DJ.
Villanova, PA is one of the wealthiest zip codes in Pennsylvania. It is literally number 2 on the list, outranked only by the neighboring town of Gladwyne, PA. Homes are built on 1+ acre plots of land and inhabitants enjoy quiet, tree-lined streets from their comfortable and spacious houses. Luxury vehicles fill the two-car garages at the end of each driveway and we live comfortably alongside our mostly white neighbors, leaving side doors unlocked for friends and neighbors to stroll in, because our quiet suburban utopia is safe.
We’re free to live with security, financial, but also physical safety. What we regrettably did not take into account was how our BIPOC friends and hired service providers would feel traveling to and from Villanova, PA on their own and especially after dark.
The guest list of party attendees was a cultural melting pot. We had white, Black, Indian, and Latine folks. Friends who live in other countries, friends who emigrated to the USA earlier that week, friends who are native English speakers and friends who are not.
Throughout the night, we heard our Black friends tell us how they feared coming to the party. They were concerned that they’d get lost in a white, wealthy neighborhood, and assumed to be dangerous. They were worried about walking from their cars to Radhi’s house, especially at night, when white neighbors would feel most threatened by their presence. These are the truth-based fears our Black friends carry with them every day in our neighborhood.
Upon further examination, we realized we live in an unsafe neighborhood. It just isn’t unsafe for us. One more way white people and BIPOC are existing in two different worlds at the same time.
Take for example our friend Christelle, a local Black woman. She has been pulled over for driving infractions TEN times, and 9 of those ten times, she was ticketed. The tenth, she was let go with a warning. Her white husband was pulled over 10 times and given one ticket. White people enjoy the privilege of being treated humanely by the police; we even view them as helpers and protectors.
Meanwhile, in Cambridge, MA, Black Harvard Professor, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., was arrested in front of his own home after the police received a call under the assumption that he was breaking and entering. Gates, Jr. was arrested for disorderly conduct, handcuffed, fingerprinted, and brought to the police station for being in his own house.
We had our own Opt-In moment recently where Aurora was deeply fearful and triggered by the fear of local police. Before the Archer-Lacey’s exodus to Texas, they stayed with Kelly and her family for one week. Kelly and her family were out and about while Aurora and her husband returned to the domicile. Aurora accidentally set off the home alarm system and when the security system reached out to Kelly, she missed the call, which triggered the security system to deploy help in the form of local law enforcement.
Being a Black woman in a white family’s house without any proof for why she was there, Aurora’s trauma response was on full blast. It became hard to breathe and she locked herself in a small bathroom to avoid confrontation with police officers. Luckily, her white husband, Colin, was there with her and was able to speak to the police and explain the situation. It became clear and obvious in a whole new way then that the safety of our neighborhood was dependent on our whiteness.
Black people aren’t offered the benefit of the doubt the way we white people are. When Black people are seen in white, wealthy neighborhoods, it is white peoples’ assumption that they don’t belong there and that they’re engaging in criminal activity. Melanated folks can’t even ask for directions without fear, and their fears are warranted.
Our American Dream is their lived nightmare.
Walking through the streets carefree, viewing police as civil servants, being in our homes without fear; this is privilege. It is an unearned comfort that Black people are not afforded.
With Halloween coming up, our Black friends have shared that their kids won’t be trick-or-treating in our neighborhood. It’s dark at night and Black people in the dark, even Black children, are viewed with scrutiny.
This is why we keep our Black Lives Matter signs outside our home. This is why we wrap twinkle lights around our mailboxes to shine a light in the darkness. This is why we message our neighbors to let them know that hanging a skeleton from a tree out front hits our Black friends differently, traumatically, and suggest racially aware ways to showcase our spooky deco. We want our neighborhood to truly be safe, not just for the wealthy white people who inhabit it.
Written in collaboration with Colleen Philbin, MSW