September 29, 1998

Yesterday I was walking to class at my (mostly) white, upper-middle-class university,
and I saw a black teenager walking up the sidewalk beside one of the campus  apartment
complexes.  I then realized exactly how elitist I have become.  My first impression was almost of shock; what was he doing here?  Then the thought occurred to me that our wonderfully secure gated community exists to keep people like him out.  Our gates do little more than cut us off from our community.  In the name of security we have shut out the neighborhood creating another effective wall to keep up the lines that divide classes in our society.  How many gated communities are there in this country?  Is it for security, or wall between people perceived as a threat because they are different?  I know that here at Belmont the gates keep out only those who aren't trying very hard to get in.  If one pushes the gate halfway open, it will open the rest of the way automatically.  Not to mention the gaps in the fences and under the gates offer many nice crawl spaces.  This semester's bike thefts are a testimony to how secure our apartments really are.  So what do we keep keep out?  Residents who have misplaced or forgotten their cards, the Papa John's guy, and the rest of the world.  When I think about it, most gated communities exist in "nice" areas.  How often are security gates placed around low rent housing?  Do the gates, put up in the name of security, really keep us safe?  Or do they reinforce existing race/class boundaries in our country?  As he walked on up the street and I to my class he gazed through the bars and our eyes met.  I am going to think long and hard about my part in keeping up gates.