Deadlines recently sought to assure us that a "slumping economy doesn't mean crime will rise."
That took me aback as I wondered for whom this assurance was meant. Surely middle-class people especially white middle-classers who, unlike most black middle-classers, might not have po' folks in the family nipping at their heels and hearts.
But what was it saying that disturbed me? Somehow it was equating poverty with criminality.
I know poverty; indeed, poverty welcomed me into the world. But in my family setting, poverty and hard times did not automatically translate into crime. If we even thought of lifting a Moon Pie or a candy bar from the shelves of the 7-Eleven, Mama would whip our behinds with a switch (read: tree limb) that she'd probably made us go find in the backyard.
Po' folks, by the way, were and, according to a recent survey, still are much more religious than others. And so, if they're like my Georgia kin, they talk the Bible day and night the way others talk about ski conditions, the exchange rate and whoever's in the gossip columns.
They take to heart those "Thou shall nots" of the Old Testament. No stealing. No killing. No coveting your neighbor's possessions and taking them without permission.
Don't make the poor, especially the colored poor, the boogeymen for New Yorkers facing an uncertain economic future. Don't be casting suspicious eyes upon those who aren't doing well in this uncertain economy and didn't do well when the economy was more certain.
Poverty is more a matter of dollars and cents than it is a sense of self.
A young cousin of mine made the local headlines down home recently for road rage coupled with harboring marijuana with the intent of selling it. That was an act of stupidity, not poverty.
His parents and their offspring of my age those of us in middle age have created a landscape less limited than when I made the trek from the all-black J.P. Carr School in Conyers, Ga., to the almost all-white Rockdale High School and the almost all-white world of the United States beyond.
Now I dream of a New York that has a place for all of us, the future James Baldwins and the future Mike Bloombergs; the future Manny Ramirezes and the future Ninfa Segarras.
Some people think that Rudy Giuliani single-handedly quashed crime in the city and fear that without him and with a money crunch we'll again be at the mercy of thugs. But Mayor Bloomberg assures us all he will carry on the fight.
Truth be told, those among us at the bottom won't soon notice the effects of a recession; it's the folks who live large who will.
And the other folks my folks will be living according to the rules of "Thou shalt not." Don't fear them because of a little ol' recession.
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