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https://freedium-mirror.cfd/https://medium.com/city-life/america-teaches-you-a-lie-about-safety-7703c3063040>
“When I was a kid in Upstate New York, I absorbed a simple rule from the adults
around me:
America is safe.
Other places are not.
As I got older, left home on the cusp of my 20th birthday, and developed a
curiosity about the world, I would mention places I'd like to someday see.
The response from Mom and Dad was always — why do you want to go there? I'll
stay right here.
Where it's safe!?
It's telling that they always left out Canada. We lived on the border and spent
a fair bit of time across it. So — with that experience—Canada didn't seem
foreign, scary, or unsafe. For as different as Canadians can be from Americans,
the two countries look and feel pretty much the same.
What's even more telling is this: growing up, Canada was completely fine, but
California was off limits. As a teenager, I remember saying I would only go to
California if I had to — for work. To make it big in radio, my passion back
then. As a few relatives liked to say, it was
the land of fruits and nuts.
Same country. Same passport. Same language.
Still framed as unsafe.
The reality — when taking size and scale into account, California wasn't any
more "unsafe" than the hollowed downtown of Niagara Falls, New York or the East
Side of Buffalo.
None of these safe/unsafe classifications were logic-based. They all came down
to experience (or lack thereof) and an unhealthy, unmoored fear of the other.
It's a dynamic similar to the one that fueled white flight.
So when you start to see how this idea of safety actually works in America, you
realize it's not based on data or lived risk. It's based on what amounts to
nothing — familiarity and narrative. Places that look like home are safe.
Places that feel different are dangerous. Even when the facts say otherwise.”
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
