Suburban Fear

I live in the city of Saint Louis. Not a suburb. Not on the edge of the city. I live in the city. People fear the city. Terribly. I doubt that people who live near Chicago fear that city. However, for some reason, people fear the city of Saint Louis, and they have been fleeing the city in droves for years.

The perception is a crime filled, cracked out dark sinister place with shootings, stabbings, muggings, sex crimes, and just general, all around filth. I think that the media portrays it as such, but then, when I watch the news here, I see sex crimes, theft, kidnapping, etc. happening in other areas of the metropolitan area. So, WTF? Why is there so much fear? Well, to put it simply, white people fear black people. No matter how good the people are, they fear them. The perception is that all blacks are "thugs", criminals, or dirty, low down people in general. Now, there are plenty of thugs, criminals, and dirty, low down areas that are all white here, but whites don't fear those areas. People supposedly "fled" the city because of crime, yet white people don't leave white areas when crimes occurs. So, process of elimination, fear of blacks. I also believe that white people fear their children attending school with blacks and potentially dating or marrying a black person. How awful and what would their friends think.

Even some of my friends have admitted, after me pressing them, that they only want to live by their own. Why is that? What is the fear? Or better yet, if Asians moved in, would they move? No, because the perception is that Asians don't bring the "horrible" things that blacks bring. I live in a very diverse area and crimes have not occured to me.

The city is growing and people are slowly coming back to the city, but there will forever be those people who fear the big, bad, "black" city.