D.C. Prepare For Lamest Race War Ever
What happens when some twee accordion-indie band from Portland, Oregon, plays a NW bar on a dead Monday night before Thanksgiving? Nothing, really, but the group in question (Norfolk & Western) were unhappy enough to share their story on some Internet board. And then it ended up on DCist. And then 7,000 people left comments either dismissing Washington as a dangerous Third World crimeland filled with dangerous black people or dismissing the haters as racists who should all move to the Pacific Northwest where everybody is white and plays in a twee accordion-indie band.
We've collected a few highlights, which you'll find after the jump.
* This type of comment is unfortunately typical of quite a few other people I have met from the Pacific NW, and also from other crunchy "liberal" places like Vermont and Minneapolis (where I'm from). They think they're all tolerant and progressive, but aren't comfortable with actual diversity. I'm sure they thought U Street is a particularly bad neighborhood, because like 1/2 the people on the street are black.
* Judging by their photo, they look like they'd be intimidated by a double-amputee newsie in a Radio Flyer buttwagon. And if they think Shaw is "a particularly bad area," they must strap on the Extra-Absorbent Depends when they play Atlanta or Detroit.
* Please... can't we be honest? That neighborhood is rife with drug dealers and stick-up guys. If I had a job that allowed me to live in the Pacific Northwest I'd be there in a heartbeat. Why deal with the inner city if you don't have to?
* I go to DC9 all the time and have never been bothered, yet today in Tenleytown I was accosted by a homeless guy. Generalizations are awesome.
* Oh, STFU you holier-than-thou morons. DC is a dangerous ghetto pit, and you know it. The band's complaints about safety are totally plausible (I don't have a clue about the mic problems, but if the bar people are at all like most service staff in DC, they're probably all future lawyers in training who hate their menial jobs and loathe anyone with the gall to ask that they do what they're paid to do.
* Wait, so the gangbangers didn't actually steal their xylophone? I mean, that alone constitutes proof that the block is a lot safer than it used to be. Perhaps Corrina expected them to offer to help load the truck. Why are we worried about these tools? Innocent people get shot in the head on U Street and racial strife pervades the neighborhood. I'm a bit more concerned about how that affects residents than what some whitebread tools from the provinces think about us and our indie-rock venues.
* I've had black kids throw pennies at my neck in the middle of a crowded Metro car in front of 50 other people at 7: 30 on a Saturday night. This city sucks.
* Hillman- Could they be yelling slurs at you because you're a turbo?
* You sound like a typical small-minded Dupont gay boy who needs to pack his shit up and move back to the Midwest...and pronto.
* I would like to say that I think it's interesting that everyone assumed that the people that surrounded the band's van were African-America when no where in the diary entry does Dave mention the ethnicity of the men involved. Leave it to ultra-liberal crusaders to spend more time jumping on their tired pedestals to bemoan the ills of the world while ignoring their own blatant prejudices.
* The five stages of living in the DC area:
Stage 1: Living downtown is the greatest! It's so wonderful living in such a vibrant, diverse community. I love being able to walk to hipster bars, overpriced tapas restaurants, and leather furniture stores where the cheapest couch costs 6-months rent.
Stage 2: DC is a squalid cesspool, a third-rate wannabe capitol like Dakar or Isengard, full of hipster losers and youth violence gangs of rogue Uruk-hai.
Stage 3: Thank god I live in the suburbs! It's so clean, the schools are great, and I don't have to worry about being raped on the way back from Bed Bath and Beyond or having pennies thrown at my head.
Stage 4: Borf was right! The suburbs are a boring, sprawling wasteland of stripmalls, $tarbucKKK$s, and cookie-cutter McMan$$ion$. I read it in the Cliffs Notes to Foucault's Madness and Civilization. $ma$h the $tate!
Stage 5: Go to Stage 1.