It saddens me how ignorant people are about violence and PTSD

I had a conversation with my mom about traveling and she asked me to pick something different, so I said “ok how about Chicago?”, she scoffed at me and said “no way, it’s bad, really bad”.

I asked why. She replied “too much violence and killing there, it’s really bad now”. I told her “it’s always been bad”. She said “well yeah, but it’s worse now”. I shake my head at this. I find it so painful to talk to someone like her and get her to see the positives in something because she only wants to see the bad in things.

I know this sounds hypocritical for me to say, but hear me out. You see, my parents and I have only been to Chicago once when I was 10 years old, I had a great time there, but my parents were very VERY boring and nitpicky. These days I cannot trust them to bring them on vacation because they always moan and argue over everything. Please note, I cannot just go on a vacation myself as I cannot drive even though I am an adult.

My state doesn’t allow me to drive by myself unless I get a license, which I don’t have. And the only so-called reliable adults I have with me are my parents sadly which these days are very difficult for me to get along with. The reason I postponed my driving is because they scared me on death and going to hell because I’m not a “true Christian”.

Back to the original topic, my parents and I have always lived in a Midwest conservative countryside neighborhood, normally I don’t mind except for the anti-feminist, racist, and anti-trans propaganda that goes on in that region. However, it’s whenever we travel to cities that have an average population of people of color, particularly black and brown people, they start complaining that it’s dangerous, therefore it’s a bad place.

Though I can agree the majority of cities populated by people of color are more dangerous, they seem to get offended about it for the wrong reasons. You see, my parents hate Chicago because it’s dangerous because it will kill THEM instead of feeling any concern about the black and brown population who have NO CHOICE but to live there. They say it’s dangerous but it’s ONLY when concerning THEM and they don’t give a s*** about any of the innocent black and brown lives in those cities!

It sickens me as my parents are the type of white supremacists that only care about themselves and usually the violence against black and brown people are caused by white people. They want no violence in the cities yet they are too cowardly to give any effort to give help and support to the individuals who are severely traumatized by these shootings.

It scares me that aren’t many protection services to help these victims and so many tend to take the issue the wrong way. Anyways, rant over.

I lived in a suburb of Chicago, and yes, there are some dangerous places in the city. Yet there are so many marvelous things as well, there is that strange city art structure everyone just calls, "The Bean,". There is the fantastic Willis Tower, which often throws me as it used to have quite a different name, it is one of the taller buildings in the world. There is the American Writers

Museum, The Museum of Science of Industry of Chicago, one of my favorites. The Art Institute of Chicago, The Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures Museum. The Field Museum, wonderful, The Museum of Contemporary Art, The National Museum of Mexican Art. Oh, it goes on and on, my favorite place to eat is always Bubba Gump's Shrimp Shack. Then one can always

have a couple of hot dogs at a baseball game. Now I am in the sicks, I enjoy the peace and quiet and I lost something there that is too painful of a reminder to me. I can't help but mention but in Wheaton is one of the main places the Pyrex Glass Company makes their fabulous glassware, near and dear to anyone who has ever been in a scientific labs heart. I have traveled all over the

world in my time, been on every continent but Australia, planned to do that but I am just not healthy enough to. All you will find in every place you go are simply people, with all of our complexities and nuances. Sure there are different languages, accents, regional cultures, but at the base it is always just people. Everyone has hopes and dreams, wants the best for their

children (In most cases), I came to where I am now, Tennessee when I was nearly six and the second friend I made was an African American kid. It was so unfortunate, he had a genetic heart defect from birth, that was missed. He was at the local sports building in the small town nearby and fell dead of a Myocardial Infarction (Heart Attack) when he was only 19 years old. I was the

first white kid to ever spend the night at his house, and his parents treated me like I was something made of fragile glass, they were such wonderful people. Can you imagine what a strange night that was for them? When I first came here I had a British accent, I was born in Europe my father was career Air Force, no need to call ICE, lol, I was born on an airbase under the joint

control of the UK and the United States, so I am a legal citizen of two worlds. I think of myself as an American, I went to school here, have lived here. fought for our military, but there I could go there anytime. My mum was British, and an M.D. like me, but she followed me to the States and was in my life till just two and a half years ago. So, yeah, as they say here folks is just folks, and I lost my British accent a long time ago. The only thing supreme I am aware of on this ball of mud is a pizza, for those that think differently, they miss out on a great deal.

I can sympathize. I spent most of my young years living in a city that is either Southern or Midwestern, depending on who you ask. There was a famous pizza chain there that would refuse to deliver to certain neighborhoods. A block away in a different neighborhood, they'd deliver, but nope, not to that street. Please understand that although the neighborhood had a bad reputation, I as a young mother could walk down the street at any time of the day or night, and I was never bothered. But they wouldn't deliver pizza there, simply because of its reputation. Why did they have this reputation? Merely because there were a lot of black people in the area. That pizza chain wouldn't deliver to anywhere with a high black concentration. They could be the nicest people in the world, and a lot of them were, but they're black, and that means the neighborhood is dangerous. My mother, when she visited, used to barricade the front door and check constantly out my living room window to make sure her car hadn't been stolen. Cheese O'Malley, it wasn't THAT bad! But middle class white people thought it was.

At first we got pizza by walking that couple of blocks to that different neighborhood, and having it delivered there. Eventually we stopped doing that, because it's just wrong. We stopped buying pizza from that place at all. We boycotted it. When my mother wanted to know why we weren't buying from that pizza place anymore, we explained. Of course she tried to justify their discriminatory delivery practices. I answered, "The only thing I know is this. If my neighbors are white, I can get pizza delivered. If my neighbors are black, I can't."

She answered, "Well, don't have black neighbors, then."

Un-bad-word-believable.

I am terribly sorry for that boy’s family, it sounds very traumatic.

That is absolutely terrible! I hope that place gets shut down for good! I also hope you cut off contact with your mother.

I moved away years ago and don't know about the place, but yes, I did cut off contact with my mother.

EDIT: Sadly, the pizza chain is still in business. I entered an address from the old neighborhood into their website, and they're still not delivering there. "Sorry, this address is out of delivery range." Still up to their old discriminatory practices.

Oh god. This is just sad. Were there any protests to get the business shut down unless they stop with the discrimination?

Yes, there has been some noise, but they're just not listening.

In this place I live in now, you kind of have to think of this place and me kind of like a yoyo over the years, as my father was originally from this region. So I have not lived here on a continuous basis since coming here when I was six. When we first moved here, to this county, the reason that I met Marcus, which was the name of the guy that passed away because of the heart defect. In this country all of the African American people lived in one concentrated area. All one had to do is go up a hill, then the houses got bigger and and it was more upscale, we just happened to live close to the border of that. Of course now I am 53 so much has changed here since then, I was at the top of the hill and him and his family lived at the bottom of the hill. It was so strange, because there were even two separate Baptist churches that were right next to each other, one the African Americans went to, the other one is where people that lived up the hill went to. There were no laws or problems with crime, I am unsure why it was divided this way? I was immune to it because it wasn't that way in Europe or if it was I was too little to notice. I will say this, one. of the best things about meeting Marcus, other than he was just a great guy, I used to attend services at the African American Baptist church. I am sorry folks but the music was a whole bunch better. My goodness them people really threw some music out, no one minded me being there. Now over the years, I was away from here several times for college, military service, then I lived in Wheaton, Illinois attending school. This place always drew me back, that city where it was like that is about twenty minutes from me. When I do have to go to that city I still see both Baptist churches sitting side by side on that end of town. I told the people at the congregation once at the church the people up on the hill went to, they were not too bright because the music was much better next door. When my father found out about that he laughed for days, and told me I was right.

Yeah I honestly prefer African American gospel-like music over the boring white evangelical ballads. The former is a lot more lively and upbeat. I can totally understand why you feel that way. And I’m an atheist lol