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The Dispatch wrote
Most say city’s safe
Thursday, December 4, 2008
By Elizabeth Gibson
As the city’s budget crunch squeezes the police department, city officials say Columbus still is one of the safest cities in the U.S. How safe? It depends on whom you ask, and academics disagree about how much a decrease in the number of officers would affect crime rates.
With the city strapped for cash, Mayor Michael B. Coleman’s office has proposed not replacing as many as 57 officers who might retire next year. Such an outcome would be hard to deal with if it continued into 2010 and 2011, said George Speaks, deputy director of public safety.
“But Columbus is still one of the safest metro cities,” he said. “Overall, looking at violent crime, we’re doing very well.”
Comments
- cheap: i highly recommend the Millersport sweet corn festival of course,the cor
- Jimmy Mak: Thanks for the write-up! Just to clarify - this is the third year we've do
- Briana Henry: Well, eventually they plan to add more bands from the region...gotta start
- bucki12: I like the business model, but the internet sales part seems like something
- racheltb: I don't see the Ohio Shrimp Fest on the list. It is truly a good time. h
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Most say Columbus is a safe city
By: Walker
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I’m willing to bet at least a handful of those comments are coming from intelligent and well-educated people. It’s the anonymity and unmoderated format that the comments are presented in that tends to allow people to temporarily devolve into the type of characters they appear to be.
In other words, it’s just too easy sometimes to be a stupid asshole on the internet when your real name is not attached.
I’m willing to bet at least a handful of those comments are coming from intelligent and well-educated people. It’s the anonymity and unmoderated format that the comments are presented in that tends to allow people to temporarily devolve into the type of characters they appear to be.
In other words, it’s just too easy sometimes to be a stupid asshole on the internet when your real name is not attached.
But there are class ques in everything we say and do. These comments are riddled with grammatical errors, spelling errors (and I am NOT the grammar police), and many of the comments give away a particular worldview:
“I do not believe that the city is safe. If you go out at night, you are taking your life into your own hands. Our police officers are doing a great job, there just isn’t enough of them to combat the surge of illegals, foreign nationals and drug / gang problem.”
Obsessively concerned with a “surge of illegals, foreign nationals”? Xenophobia is almost the exclusive domain of the working class. Typically, someone who worries to that degree about legal and illegal aliens is towards the bottom of the pecking order. Those further up are more likely to see/utilize the benefits that both kinds of immigrants bring; innovation, cheap labor, diversity.
These are the people that Obama was talking about when he said “it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
Just my 20 cents. Working class whites.
I’m willing to bet at least a handful of those comments are coming from intelligent and well-educated people. It’s the anonymity and unmoderated format that the comments are presented in that tends to allow people to temporarily devolve into the type of characters they appear to be.
In other words, it’s just too easy sometimes to be a stupid asshole on the internet when your real name is not attached.
But fine, I am willing to admit that the Dispatch poll comments aren’t all coming from the same trailer park. I’m sure there is a range of income, class, and educational levels, but I think one group is better represented.
Really? I always picture the average Dispatch commenter being more the stereotypical sheltered suburban housewife who’s opinion is largely shaped by the fear mongering of the tv newsscape with a sprinking of good old fashioned crime news gossip/urban legends.
I’ve always taken them to be a little more on the downscale end of things. Maybe the picture is a little extreme, but lower middle class anyway. The comments generally seem to lack the savvy and knowledge of those further up the (suburban) totem pole. Ignorance is a social ill, and poverty (and relative poverty) tends to breed those. I think it’s more Groveport than Upper Arlington.
Elitist, are we?
Elitist, are we?
Please don’t compare yourself to Obama. I personally never considered Obama to be elitist. Bush, yes, elitist. Obama, no.
And, I do believe education is important to lead. And I believe it can help to overcome some types of ignorance (I had a long, interesting discussion about this topic with some friends last summer). However, I don’t think it necessarily reduces fear of the unknown or prejudice (except as it exposes the student to more than they may have had an opportunity to experience otherwise). I think this what is at the heart of what we’re discussing. And, I still don’t know how you “know” the types of people that made those statements, other than your own stereotyping.
Hrm. I always thought that foreigners WERE the working class…
Anyway, I don’t think there’s any shortage of xenophobia in any neighborhood in any city in this country. Though I would be interested to see if there’s any sort of data collected that weighs how income or education levels play into these feelings.
Nothing against Upper Arlington (just using it since it was the example originally brought up), but I’m a bit skeptical that even the highest level of college degree somehow excludes all people from having any sort of xenophobic undertone in their decision making process when choosing a home in a neighborhood that is 94% white.
Elitist, are we?
Please don’t compare yourself to Obama.
If I’m Obama, are you…
Just kidding.
Hrm. I always thought that foreigners WERE the working class…
Anyway, I don’t think there’s any shortage of xenophobia in any neighborhood in any city in this country. Though I would be interested to see if there’s any sort of data collected that weighs how income or education levels play into these feelings.
Nothing against Upper Arlington (just using it since it was the example originally brought up), but I’m a bit skeptical that even the highest level of college degree somehow excludes all people from having any sort of xenophobic undertone in their decision making process when choosing a home in a neighborhood that is 94% white.
“Foreigners” run the entire gamut of class. Many of my friends who are first/second generation Americans are also the children of doctors, lawyers, etc. And at the other end, yeah, immigrants also perform many of the most menial of labor jobs. I think the latter group may be what that Dispatch poster I quoted had in mind. “They’re stealing our jobs!”
But I’m a second generation American and I really don’t consider myself working class. My parents aren’t either.
but I’m a bit skeptical that even the highest level of college degree somehow excludes all people from having any sort of xenophobic undertone in their decision making process when choosing a home in a neighborhood that is 94% white.
I never said “excludes all people from having any sort of xenophobic undertone.” I do think there is a correlation though.
Heh. I was extrapolating a bit. ;)
I’m just holding my reservations until I see some research data.
I would be doing the same thing. But I think national politics are reorienting this way to some degree. Think the stereotypical Hilliary supporter in the last cycle or Lou Dobbs followers. People who in previous decades (and to some degree still) would have been the union vote. Fiscal liberals, social conservatives, anti-free trade, anti-immigration-leaning, with mild isolationist views. The final conversion to the Republican Party of the Reagan Democrats.
The Democratic party is losing working class voters and gaining more of the business class, high earners, and those with higher educational attainments.
I think that as the reorientation becomes more clear it will be easier to see where xenophobia typically lies. McCain’s slogan this year was “country first”, coupled with painting Obama as an effete elitist, it was a clear attempt to continue attracting the working class white vote through an appeal to their apprehension towards “the other.”
This is who I am talking about. As manufacturing in Ohio continues its slow death bleeding jobs, their prospects continue to sink. Increased outsourcing, offshoring, and increased manufacturing abroad coupled with the growth of the mass affluent has created a wider cultural rift between upper and lower incomes/classes as well as increased resentment by working class whites towards “foreigners” both here and abroad. A general feeling of blue collar malaise. THAT, is what comes across in the Dispatch poll comments.
People tend to worry more about serious crime than petty crimes which is much more likely to happen. For example, the vast majority of murders are gang/drug related, so as long as you’re not involved there’s no reason to over-exagerate the danger.
Xenophobia is not limited to working class people or white people. Boo to your comments.
I can vouch for that one.
Columbus is a whole heck of a lot safer than some US cities I’ve been to. Not the safest by any stretch but safer than average I would bet.
Boo to you, Woody Guthrie. I never said it was limited to working class people. I said…
It’s a continuum, at one end there is a higher probability of xenophobic tendencies and at the other end a lower probability of xenophobic tendencies. So yes, there is a high school dropout somewhere from a working-poor family who dreams up ways to help immigrants in his spare time and yes, there is probably a Fortune 500 CEO worried that an undocumented alien is going to take his job.
But this started as a rant against the people who comment on Dispatch polls and has ended as an indictment of the working class. So while we’re at it, they tend not to be accepting of gay rights and a lot of them are racist. :D
I want to visit this utopia where xenophobia and classicism doesn’t exist. Who is this “they” we speak of?
http://www.adultfriendfinder.com
I agree. When considering the reputation of the city I live in, I worry about murder. Do I think I am more likely to be murdered if the murder rate in Columbus goes up? No, cause I don’t sell drugs. I’m more worried personally about home robberies/car theft/muggings, and rape.
I personally do not feel that safe at the moment since I live on the NW side and there’s a rapist loose who it doesn’t look like we have any chance of finding soon. I’m more worried for women who live alone in apartments who are the ones he’s been targeting though. I think it’s a bad time to ask when there is a “cereal” rapist on the loose. After he is (hopefully) caught, women especially will probably feel a little safer.
Of course you’re more likely to be date-raped or acquaintance raped but that doesn’t factor into your fear level.
It’s tempting to assume the responses came from the uneducated since there were so many grammatical errors, but you have to keep in mind that this is the internet and not everyone is going to proofread an internet post. Most people do, but a lot of people just type away and click “submit”.
Coming from a poor/working class neighborhood, it’s hard to imagine the people I grew up with being afraid of anything. If anything they are the reason why someone would be afraid to go to Easton, not the person who is afraid to go there. Seriously, who’s afraid at Easton? Tell me that doesn’t sound like a sheltered suburban housewife?