Update 810: Streets Still Not Safe

A guy who works at a gas station I frequent was fiddling with his front teeth when I stopped by yesterday. The owner, an Iraqi man who bought the place a few years back, brought his voice low and said, "The fucking brothers jumped him." The employee then brandished a foot-long hunting knife, which he said was, after the incident, his new self-defense system.The full story of the attack went something like this:

He was walking down Saginaw street and had stopped at the Sunoco when three upstanding African-American citizens approached him. One of them threw a hook, which the employee ducked. He backed away from the trio and was greeted with a ceasefire--the initial attacker extended his arm and offered a warm "Nah man, we cool." There was, as he described, not time enough to glance back up after looking down at the attacker's outstretched hand before the second sucker-punch landed. The three victims of racist oppression then literally beat his teeth out.

We--meaning I--here at The 810 Diaries feel that three crucial mistakes were made by the employee that night:

1. Being on any part of Saginaw Street, at any time of night, on any day of the year, and in any weather. I can't stress enough that FLINT IS A DANGEROUS PLACE FILLED WITH DANGEROUS PEOPLE.
2. Not owning a gun. Michigan is an open-carry state, meaning that someone as young as 18 can carry a legal gun in plain sight. Our guy is over 21, which means he should have already had one holstered under his coat when he made mistake number one.
3. Sticking around. If you're ever in a rough part of town without a gun and you see three Black guys coming your way, you cross the fucking street. You might feel like a good little anti-racist for giving them the benefit of the doubt, but the alternative is losing some teeth--or worse. (Look it up yourself, if you don't like the source.)

I don't care that the police won't ever bother to go after the attackers. I don't care that this wouldn't be considered a hate crime. I don't even really care about the guy who got his teeth knocked out--that's what he gets for mistakes 1, 2, and 3. What really gets me is that there are people out there who would excuse this behavior--we all know that White racism is what really jumped the guy, who probably said something racist to provoke it anyway.