How hard are you? :)

[Apech]

I lived in this place for 5 years ....

 

 

... beat that

[Marblehead]

No, I can't beat that but it gives me the opportunity to make two comments.

 

Upon returning to the States from my first tour in Germany the first place I lived in (Augusta, Georgia) was the slave house of a plantation called Windsor Springs. (I learned many years later that it has burned down.)

 

Second, that (where you lived) is the biggest problem, I think, of social/welfare housing. When the government just gives people stuff most will not take good care of it. There are many lazy people on this planet and they refuse to do anything, even to help themselves.

 

Back when I was driving taxi I would take fares to or pick them up from two parts of town that were similar to that. I always left those areas as quickly as I could.

 

Edit to add: Okay, that was three comments. Big deal.

Edited December 15, 2012 by Marblehead

[Protector]

13 years under a dictatorship!!!

 

Though I didn't know that it was a dictatorship, the streets were so clean and I didn't see police that often that I thought everything was fine

Then I looked at some North Korea videos and their streets are even cleaner, hmm

Though these street kids looked scary sometimes, what's up with them

[Apech]

... saw something like this outside at back maybe 2/3 times a week.

Dictator! would have loved one. Edited December 15, 2012 by Apech

[ShenLung]

Mwah ha ha I'll bite ... When I was 17, I ran away from home, wound up here ... had to leave after six months due to financial difficulties, couldn't afford to support myself in such high style. Most of the kids shown in the video are just posers, trying to live up to the OG's that I was living in the midst of, but you can get the idea.

 

Oh yeah, did I mention ... I'm white?

 

[三江源]

 

... saw something like this outside at back maybe 2/3 times a week.

 

Dictator! would have loved one.

 

picture no worky

[gatito]

VERY!!!

 

 

 

Edited December 15, 2012 by gatito

[三江源]

gatito, if i could like your post a lot of times, I would.

[Apech]

VERY!!!

 

 

 

That's hard!

[GreytoWhite]

I grew up in Section 8 housing in Stockton, CA. I'm Chicano but look Anglo. It was real fun when the Mexicans found out my dad was Mexican. Got jumped for my boots, jumped for being White, jumped for being Mexican, jumped for being smart. For years everyone thought my family had money because I did well at school. Eventually it got to the point where I became known as the kid who would bite and scratch if attacked and I always had a 2 foot long chain made from key rings at my belt with keys at the end to use like a flail. Never did get that thing confiscated and I think the "handle" a metal letter "M" is in a box somewhere, perhaps the only thing left from my childhood.

 

I went to visit my grandmother there two weeks ago and heard a driveby less than two blocks away. There are approximately 70 murders there so far this year alone. Per capita it has a higher murder rate than Chicago. The city is always in the top 10 hot spots for car theft. Growing up I wore a lot of green in middle and high school because there were no major gangs repping that color on my side of town. A friend of mine gave me a tip so I also wore grey shoes (neutral) with laces tied at the toe (untouchable) for a while. It's definitely not a place I would like to live in again.

[Apech]

@Mithshrike .. damn you are hard!

[skydog]

I used to actually think about this question and try to live up to this image, ( ah lovely young me ahah) I would do all kinds of things to try to prove machoness/toughness/assertiveness in a way I was brainwashed by certain social conditioning, in a way it was good for me to become more assertive, but yeh im leaning more toward focusing on how hard one is is very very negative, the focus should be more about kindness, kindness is kindness, weakness is weakness, agression/violence is self attack.

 

ok ill stop preaching

[Protector]

I watch My Little Pony

 

[Marblehead]

I watch My Little Pony

Yeah, we already know about you. Hehehe.

[GreytoWhite]

@Mithshrike .. damn you are hard!

 

I never joined any of the gangs because I knew that way led to prison. My uncle did much the same but the drugs got him to prison. He and I are somewhat parallel in that we tend to stay on the fringes of the criminal element but never join up. As an adult now and having lived away from the region for so long and then coming back it's definitely a big change.

 

A lot of people think I'm a racist White guy, I'm not racist there is shit in every people and I have been exposed to more than most. I also expect a certain level of decorum when in public. Arizona is largely White and Mexican and coming back to NorCal was a big culture shock for me. The increased exposure to negative behavior here has increased the tolerance to it, such that unacceptable behavior is considered the norm.

[Cat Pillar]

I had it easy, really. Only real problem I faced was constant bullying up until high school. I was the guy everyone loved to hate, lowest on the totem pole at the school.

 

But the schools I went to were safe otherwise. I only got beat up a couple of times.

[konchog uma]

i'm from the suburbs. my parents were white middle class christians. i was homeschooled.

 

city life intruiged me as a kid, i never liked the burbs or the white picket fence neurosis, but at least i was safe. no gangs, no guns, none of that.

 

my hardness rating is -1

[ShenLung]

One of the things that I learned from the OG's was this: they are just people, attempting to get by in whatever way they can, without making too much of a disruption for everyone else. Seem strange? It's a matter of perspective. I was perfectly safe in that envirionment because I was a legitimate resident of the 'hood'. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

Selling drugs to addicts and pimping out women who have no sense of self worth may seem bad, but compared to selling time shares and annuity funds, it is not so different, once one understands the principles involved in the exchange. Come to think of it, drugs and prostitution are small potatoes compared to the evil that is invoved in annuities ...

 

The suffering of existence is something that everyone shares, from the most priveledged to the least.

[GrandmasterP]

I lived in this place for 5 years ....

 

 

... beat that

......

We lived in Brixton during the riots.

It was brilliant. The bargains you could get. Every pub became a clearing house for looty booty.

Lower Broughton isn't exactly pretty is it but Moss Side's worse.

[OnPhourCoughee]

I know every day could be my last.

[suninmyeyes]

13 years under a dictatorship!!!

me --18 years under dictatorship comrad.

 

2 years of war , whole country under psychosis and severe fear. Sniperists killing from the windows, air attacks, bombings, people really going insane doing stuff they wouldnt normally do. Beasts awakening.

 

10 years of squatting - your place Apech looks like a royal palace in comparison to some places I lived in. Things like ceiling falling off, no bathroom , no electricty, hole in the floor as big as half of the room was not uncommon.

Drug dealer permanently dealing infront of my window and when asked if he could keep the noise down he told me to go back to my country . Next time he knocked on my window at 4am asking for light -- I gave him lighter and told to keep it.

The worst thing is that they started to hide drugs in my plants in front yard and would dig them all up , so all the plants died eventually. Moving 10 times in 6 months is my record. Escaping from police on the rooftops and climbing the walls became a new sport. Maybe that was how the parkour started.

And so on .

However I am not hard ,but have learnt to stomach life and love its manifestation in all its diversity.

[deci belle]

I only can speak of broken bodies and their missing parts in the mountains where very large things rip loose …like the sky and rock and ice. Even clouds of snow roar deafeningly and bodies fall and fall …like a whisper on the landscape beyond reach.

 

But I have never have had to make my home in a land of chronic madness and numbing terror…❤

[skydog]

.

Edited December 24, 2012 by sinansencer

[Aetherous]

suninmyeyes is officially the hardest tao bum.

[ShenLung]

Annuities are a type of investment vehicle based upon the profitability of an insurance companies investment efforts. They are sold on the strength of the percieved benefit: an anual payment to the investor based upon the principle deposit. The downside comes with various legal contract arcana that can leave the investor incapable of realising any significant gain for his/her money while the profits are consumed by fees and the principle becomes diffficult to extract once the investor becomes aware that there are better ways to invest their savings.