City of Sin

Trump says he’s sending in troops – all kinds of troops, all the troops, so many troops, so many kinds of troops – to all the “Democrat cities.” Leaving aside the fact that Eric Adams is a goddamn weirdo, and this is a perfect example of him on a normal day:

Leaving that aside…

In 1987, after I graduated from college and left my post-college job to get a Real Job in editing in New York, my father and mother and our ever-blessed Chevy Malibu relocated me from Boston to 100th Street and Broadway in Manhattan.

This car moved a lot of us kids around – my brother and sister had a lot going on at the same time. My father must have felt like he was forever in transit.

That particular weekend, Dad had gotten a substitute pastor to give the sermon and pass the plate around. He hadn’t left any specific instructions. But I heard about it after he got back – apparently this preacher had the whole congregation praying for me because I was moving to Sin City.

He wasn’t far wrong, in a lot of ways – I was living in a heroin den, next to a prostitute and her pimp, and there was a shooting on the floor below me about a month after I moved in. Dad later regretted moving me in there, but at the time – 1986 – it wasn’t so far removed from the 60s and 70s when teenagers got up to all kinds of things. I was 21 and clearly knew my own mind.

I did not.

But I was parentified from an early age, so that left me in NYC at the age of 20, 21, 22, with no resources but my own self. I desperately wanted to be here. I have, in fact, fought really hard to remain here – despite rising rents, despite a lack of housing, despite homeownership being a pipe dream. I live on Staten Island. Despite people’s mockery, it is nonetheless, stubbornly, a borough of NYC.

But. NYC was not and is not Sin City. Not in the 1980s, not now. Yes, there are shootings – including one that happened recently. I’m not making excuses – there are real dangers here. But there are mass shootings everywhere, all over the country. Cities are not inherently more dangerous than other parts of the country!

Apart from shootings, there are definitely problems – the subways and buses can be terrible, homelessness has always been a heartbreaking issue, climate change is fucking up our infrastructure.

And yeah, someone stole the casing off my driver’s side mirror a few months ago.

Also, our current mayor is an absolute doorknob.

But New York is not a den of iniquity – it is a haven. With every wave of immigration comes amazing cuisine. Staten Island, as white as it is, is also the home of the largest community of Sri Lankans (and the restaurants to prove it) and Liberians (their restaurants are secrets, and it’s not for me to tell) outside their respective countries. If I want jollof rice, literally all I have to do is press a button.

A trip into other boroughs yields so many riches that you can’t get anywhere else in this country. In, Manhattan, the Philharmonic. Theater. Everything at Lincoln Center. Everything downtown – famous clubs, spaces, venues. Elsewhere, in other boroughs, the amazing restaurants, libraries, bookstores. Hell, on Staten Island, the Wu Tang Clan is constantly creating businesses.

The point I’m trying to make is that the current administration is trying to demonize cities because they are full of a diverse population of people from all over the world. I commute to Newark, NJ 3 days a week – a majority-minority city – and I’ve never felt more at home among so many people from so many places. We’re all trying to get along. We’re all trying to do our work and do it well. We’re all minding our business, doing what needs to get done.

This administration is going after non-white people in some kind of order – brown people first (Latinx, Hispanic, those from south of the Texas-Mexican border) and Black people. By banishing them to concentration camps. By terrorizing them in the streets.

The kinds of people whipping up fear about what goes on in big cities are the kinds of people who want to control you. Because big cities mean exposure to more people, more culture, more ways of thinking. Big cities broaden minds. And broad minds are a threat. Broad minds question things.

And questioning things is the big sin. Not accepting what people tell you – not accepting what they push on you as the only reality. Saying, in the words of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower, “there are other worlds than these” – that’s what they really fear.

They fear a world where they’re not in charge. In big cities, absolutely no one is in charge. Everyone else would call them out on it. Cities rule by consensus, not by fiat.

Autocrats hate consensus.

They also hate Black mayors.