Chris Collin got in touch with us again to share another poignant story about living in the Mission. It’s just as gripping (and heartbreaking) as his last tale of Randy the wanderer, but this time focuses on some complicated gentrification issues:
We were thoroughly friendly—even jokey and playful at first—but the guys just didn’t like us. Maybe we were interlopers on a block they’d dominated for years. Maybe our earnestness was annoying: our sputtering veggie oil car next to their monster V8s, our cheerful cat Biggie gazing innocently at their snarling dogs. Whatever it was, they unwelcomed us with glares and mutterings that only grew bolder over time. Sometimes we’d come home to a broken fence or a bottle smashed in our pathway, the stares from the stoop daring us to comment. Increasingly we didn’t. They had gangbanger friends, spoke intimately of violence. And, in my head, I turned muscle-bound and ridiculous, raining righteousness down upon every insult.
Previously:
 as his last tale of Randy the wanderer, but this time focuses on some complicated gentrification issues: We were thoroughly friendly—even jokey and playful at first—but the guys just didn’t like […]</p>
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Now that is how you Keep the Mission Brown!
Brown people with means can leave when aggro corporate gangster-rap loving youth move in next door. The rest stay and suffer because they are trapped. Just because someone is brown skinned doesn’t mean they like living in fear and intimidation.
Like my elderly Mexican neighbor who is afraid to just get milk from the store because the intimidating gangsters two doors down scare the bejesus out of him and his wife. Is that what “keep the Mission Brown” means?
I’m sorry to hear about this. Living with a psychopathic neighbor from hell myself I can really relate. We recently got a restraining order against her which helped some, but she will remain the issue for us until she moves out (early next year).
I’d say if moving out is not an option for you (like it isn’t for us), stay away from them, install a surveillance system (since our cameras went up our door handle is not smeared with honey, or grease and feces don’t show up on our doormat anymore) and get the restraining order.
Nothing of that is pleasant, but if you feel the anxiety rising in you each time you get close to your home, you need to protect yourself.
sorry – I messed up the Name box on my Reply: my name is Piotr, not “e”
that “meow, meow, meow” part would have set me off into an insane, counterproductive and probable emergency room visiting rage….
Oooh! bullies! i like this story best when its set on a playground.
that meow, meow, meow, part is some heartless shit.
I’m sorry… what is the point of this exchange? … Chris has a real problem: a neighbor that is determine to make his life unpleasant (to say the least).
As far as I can see from his posting he did nothing to turn this neighbor against him. However, it seems that in this city thugs will always find defenders… and victims will be painted as villains…
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