How to Survive in "The Ghetto" As A White Boy

So I lived in Harlem - in Manhattan, a borough of New York City - for 7 years. I never got into a tiff with a "black person" (instead, I later married one). I taught at CUNY up on 137th Street & Broadway. I'm as white as they come. (Maybe even pink.) How did I do it? Read on . . .

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

Things You’ll Need:

• Your self.
• Your wits.
• White skin, I guess, but not "white" attitudes.
• "Chutzpah" (no, I'm not Jewish, but you do need cajones [no, I'm not Mexican, either]).

1. City College of New York City (a campus of the City University of New York) GETTING IT STRAIGHT: "Ghetto" originally meant an area in a city in which Jews were confined. Today the pop meaning has changed so radically that in many places "ghetto" is either "cool," or what you say to somebody who's behaving in a manner that you think inappropriate. WOW! So much for words. I'm talking mainly about living on the sometimes hard streets of New York City, specifically in Harlem, where I taught philosophy for 2 years and where I lived for 7 years.
2. This Is What I'm Talking About WHAT I SAW: I saw people's heads bashed in with pipes, resulting in death. I saw a man almost get his throat slashed. I saw two guys the size of Shak in a brawl, with blood all over the place. I saw a woman running down Broadway, followed by a man, followed by another man with a gun. I saw public sex. I saw drug deals, and cops turning their heads. I saw elaborate theatrical productions. I saw happy people in clubs. I saw and listened to old fishermen on the Hudson River drinking 40s and talking until the sun rose.
3. Harlem Film Festival 2007 WHAT I DID: I collected crack vials: in one day, I picked up over 100 out of Morningside Park while out strolling my then-infant son. I went to the Apollo Theater, and I counted the steps from my apartment on Riverside Drive & LaSalle to my office and classrooms at City College. I ate great food. I made great friends. I kept a focus on who and what I am, and - equally importantly - who and what I am not. I celebrated life in the most ethnically diverse spot on the planet; I smiled as often as I could do so without being disingenuous; and I talked to anybody I encountered as though they were my brothers and my sisters - because, I realized, they are. The human species is an extended family, and I wanted to get to know as many members of it as possible in the belief that it would help me get to know Larry Fike (me).
4. WHAT I DID NOT DO: I didn't treat anybody as though they had a "nature" other than my own. I listened respectfully to anything anybody said to me. I followed up on any commitments I made.
5. WHAT I LEARNED: You *can* judge books by their covers, but you're a fool if you do so. Jeffrey Dahmer was a half-way decent-looking white boy, but to look at Samuel L. Jackson in "Pulp Fiction" ought to fill you with initial terror if it hasn't done so already. But who would you rather spend an evening with, or go on a road trip with? I want to meet my brother Samuel J. and get his attitudes about swine-flesh straight before I croak. Dahmer? Thank the stars I never met the man.

Tips & Warnings

• If you're a white boy, like me, try thinking of yourself as a black man. But be careful: if you do it too much, you just may become one. That's what my wife convinced me happened to me. Do I regret it? On the contrary. It probably has more to do with my joys and sorrows than anything else I've recognized about who I am in my entire life.
• Walk away from conflict as often as possible. Carry a cell phone.
• Read good literature. Listen to Sekou Sundiata's poem, "Oh, Harlem."
• Trust your instincts, but only if you are sure first that you have your wits about you.
• Enjoy the countless positive things that Harlem has to offer: food, dance, theatre, African awareness, diversity, a world-class university, intensity, color, flare, and . . . MUSIC!
• Don't get drunk and wind up on a bus at 3 in the morning and find yourself kicked out to fend for yourself while drug dealers and pimps walk up and down an avenue in a location you have never even seen before. The author may or may not be guilty of having done this a time or two.
• Don't buy street drugs.
• Be careful in clubs and bars. There's a lot of hustle going down, most true.