As a late night cab driver, if you’re ever wondering why I’m on the street rather than the driveway in your sketchy, pickup truck filled suburban neighborhood, this is why.
Give me a shady looking industrial district or run down residential neighborhood over semi-rural suburbia any day of the week. I feel much safer.
Yikes.
I’m like the exact opposite, but it’s mostly because I’ve had bad experiences with gangbangers.
I was lily white guy living in ground zero of MS13 gangland in Los Angeles in the early 2000s for four years. I know it’s crazy, but best neighbors I ever had. We all bbq’d together, watched each other’s kids, and got along well.
One morning I was taking a bus to work. Two guys robbed me while I was standing at the bus stop. I had fifteen dollars, which I happily gave to them.
I went over to my neighbor that evening and told him what happened.
The next day, there was fifteen dollars in my mailbox.
I moved from there to high end HOA in Texas and holy hell it was miserable. I hated them all. They were the nosiest, most judgemental assholes imaginable. One lady would go walking down the alleys checking how many beer cans people had in their recycling and called the police on one house charging them with child neglect because of beer cans in their recycling bin. Fuck that neighborhood forever.
(There’s a funny coda to the robbery. I smoked a lot back then. When they were done shoving the gun in my ribs and walking away, I blurted out, “guys, I’m stressed. Do one of you have a light?” and I swear on a stack of books of your choice that one of them turned around and lit my cigarette)
There’s a certain weird honor in lighting the cigarette of the guy you just robbed. It’s kinda respectable.
This is real. I’ve had folks in my cab that clearly were trying to probe my boundaries to see if I’m an easy target who immediately switched gears the moment I showed my personality. Just because someone is desperate doesn’t mean they want to fuck over someone who’s cool with them and is real. The way you carry yourself makes a difference.
It’s pretty obvious if you meet me in person that I’m a broke artist who cares about real people and detests fake corporate bullshit. That’s not really an appealing target and I have fuck all to give them anyway.
But if some fuck shoots me for being on their street while being trans, or literally just someone they don’t recognize, I don’t get the chance to show how I carry myself.
Oh boy, I can’t even imagine… just parking in the street and suddenly: surprise gangbang on your hood
If you’re serious, there are two different uses of the term.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gangbanger
(US, slang) A member of a violent gang; a violent person.
(vulgar, sex) Someone who takes part in a gangbang.
It’s really sad watching you people make light of a serious topic.
I guess it’s because you can’t tolerate any criticism of cities, even if they house most of the people who own guns illegally and use them on other humans.
But it’s not front-page news on these websites whenever someone dies due to gang violence, because it happens every day.
It also depends where. Suburban or exurban driveways in the South can be deadly with all the 2nd amendment hardliners. Especially in small or midsize cities. In northern or western urban or suburban areas, not as bad.
In my experience, it’s drunk drivers and gangbangers in cities that have killed my friends.
