[sudo-discuss] my experiences with "crime" in oakland [part 1 of ?]

[rhodey]

I tried to share this experience of mine without adding my
interpretations such that all my fellow sudoers could be free to draw
their own. But now I worry that in doing so I may have made my
intentions in brining up a sensitive subject a bit too blurry, sorry :)

My takeaway from this experience is that crime is largely a reinforced,
logical behavior which sometimes can be bested not by cops or
surveillance cameras, but by the most simple of social interactions.

Avoiding crime and preventing crime are two different problems to
tackle, and while I hope each and everyone of you is able to avoid
crime, I hope more that we can use our small little Sudo Room and our
larger future Sudo Space to instead make it illogical by providing
better alternatives. But first we have to understand the motivations,
thus my contribution of the text below.

-- 
-- rhodey ˙ ͜ʟ˙

On 11/18/2013 06:55 PM, rhodey wrote:
> Receiving and contemplating the perspectives of others is one of my
> favorite ways to burn metaphorical CPU cycles. The level of respect I
> show for differing perspectives is something I hope to never be
> content with, that is to say I believe it's an endless process and I'm
> still working on it. I have a tendency to keep my head stuck in
> projects and have realized is that I've been holding out on sharing
> many of my most valued perspectives, more specifically my experiences.
> It is my hope that through sharing experiences we can better
> understand how to conduct ourselves within Sudo Room and how we Sudo
> Room can better conduct ourselves within our local community.
> 
> I arrived in the "bay area" May 1st by way of some airport in New
> England, in search of hackers, activists and uncomfortable
> experiences. After subletting an apartment in the mission for all of a
> month I moved to West Oakland. Since arriving in Oakland I've been
> robbed three times, to me each experience has been indescribably
> educational in its own way. However, my first crime related experience
> in Oakland was not a crime at all.
> 
> There is a corner store within ~6 minutes walking distance from my
> apartment by West Oakland BART called Happy Times. To me it is usually
> a liquor store, but this day I felt like working through the night so
> I bought 2 large redbull energy drinks. Walking home holding the
> redbull as best I could in one hand I passed two African-American
> youths, one female, one male and both no older than 17. We passed each
> other and at this time I was about 20" from home then from behind me I
> heard "hey man, can I get a redbull?".
> 
> I turned around to face the two of them with a bit of a guilty smile
> on my face, after all who the fuck really needs 32oz of redbull?
> Caffeine, other energy drinks, productivity and I all get along
> swimmingly, all the better if I can help someone else get things done.
> "Sure" I said, followed by "make good use of it" in an attempt to make
> the situation more casual. I walked up and handed him the redbull, his
> face lit up, he went nuts.
> 
> **and I quote** "Oh man! Asking is so much better than stealing!"
> 
> The smile stayed on his face as he continued celebrating, exclaiming
> all possible iterations of the above statement as I stood their
> dumbfounded. This continued for minutes until we parted ways, up the
> stairs and into the house I could still hear him talking with his friend.
> 
> This was certainly not the first time he'd been told of this
> sentiment, but after ~17 years of living it was the first time he had
> ever believed it. There are at least 3 other experiences I would like
> to share in time, but for now I'll leave it at this.
>