Monday, September 01, 2014

Lessons from the Neighborhood


Hope you all had a good summer!


A little story for a teaching lesson:
 
My neighbor and I had called in some estate officials to bear witness to another noisy neighbor. We were thinking that we had a good case because he was in full flow at the time when we had them come on a Friday night. However when they the officials sat down to tell us what kind of noise was now classed in the unacceptable range, I almost lost it! The threshold is now so high, that to meet the noisy level range, this neighbor would probably have had to be using a pneumatic drill in his house. I am very noise sensitive and I believe I have written about other noisy neighbors in the past on this blog. This time again my worst nightmare has moved even closer to my house. 
 
Let me say that the area I live in has rapidly deteriorated from a nice lush area only 3 years ago because it was targeted by government to house social 'misfits' who were being housed in much more expensive inner London. When the price difference became just too great the government started to move 'problem folk' -which it had a duty to house- to the area. I know I will need to move but if you know anything about the way Britain is going, the South-east of England is being taken over by rich Russian Oligarchs who have a couple of millions to spare which I don't-one of the reasons we preach for black women to have wealth is for such situations where you have to move and move and move again if necessary.
Jourdan Dunn - credits to styleblazer

An article that should be celebrating the best of black womanhood becomes one emphasizing how we just love to make wrong choices, love single motherhood are always aggressive and hardship-seeking as a habit!

Anyway in my anger and upset I forgot a key message which I often and constantly preach especially to black women and that is that they should stop being taken for a ride by all this chit chat they hear about our fair societies and feeling that we will be protected by all these nice sounding government leaflets etc etc. Indeed I thought that the law and policies would protect my rights to not be disturbed at weekends by overgrown children, but what I didn’t realize (well I know but it was being painfully brought home to me really and truly in this instance) was that these 'laws' are written by an elite group of citizens to appeal to their interests and most importantly their sympathies and weird biases.
 
What am I talking about? In truth, if you are unaware, we now live in a society where the rich effectively remove themselves from the 'dregs' of society, at the same time they champion the rights of these dregs over the rest because they are in their worldview 'poor little folk who have been 'failed' by the system in some way!'-however they do not move these dregs anywhere in striking distance of them and their children. Prioritizing the underclasses particularly over honest, hard-working citizens in society has become a favorite pastime of the British elite, that it now 'pays' to be 'kept' by government than put in a honest days work for a paycheck at the bottom end of the skills market. It also means the hard working and honest pay the price (sometimes the ultimate price) for the 'indulgence' of these feral and destructive sections. I am a recovering lefty myself and used to champion the idea of 'care in the community' until a couple of folk going about their everyday business got their heads cut open by axe-men who had been 'released' into the community from mental institutions. And if you haven’t heard the latest about the rape and trafficking of over 1400 young British girls while the elite turned a blind eye because they were 'white trash' and their favorite minority class (British Muslims) was implicated in the abuse, please read a good summary here

The bible says that the rich rule over the poor, how could I have forgotten. No matter what left wingers tell you, the world is very unfair and works in favor of the rich/er and their particular interests and strange emotional attachments to folk who make life unpleasant for the rest - as long as these ones are nowhere near them of course. So no matter what people say try to get yourself to the side where you control your wealth because it is so F)&^ unfair and I felt like stamping my feet at the unfairness of it all. I started to speak up in my resentfulness of the whole unfairness of having to meet unreasonable standards of noise making proof, but from my peripheral view I noticed that my neighbor had started to 'act' to get her way, even flirted with the officers and (as she told me later), dragged her son out of bed to say how he was being kept awake because of the noise. After a while I kept my mouth shut and let her play the game she was playing. I had started speaking in my anger at the unfairness and I kind of sensed that this approach was putting the officers on the defensive (having to defend the way the policy was written regardless of how senseless it was) but this woman realized that she needed to get her way and went for the best strategy. It was her strategy that seemed to make the officials begin to see it our way and see that it was just unfair to say that we should put up with the noise because it wasn't 'high enough' - imagine that!

Folks, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do, and what you gotta do sometimes is not rely on the laws and statutes being anything more than a let down. This episode was a reminder that it pays to play the best strategy than whine about the unfairness of the situation. We all have just about 657,000 hours (give or take) on this planet and we need to live most of it in peace and comfort!



Next post available 15th September 2014

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4 comments:

Kim G. said...

Halima,

First time poster here from the US.

I am delighted that you are back from your vacation, and hope you enjoyed your hiatus, in spite of all the noise disturbances. I am also noise sensitive, and what you and your neighbors have had to endure reads to me like slow torture.

The scenario you described with your neighborhood drives home two points for me.

1. After health, MONEY IS EVERYTHING. If you had the resources, you could have been gone within 24 hours of registering the first noisy disruption of your neighborhood. Money equals freedom, and there is no freedom if one cannot enjoy one's home without interruption.


2. When dealing with an incredibly unfair situation, ONE MUST RESOLVE TO WIN BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY. I like your neighbor's approach. Flirt, wake up the kid and drag him into the fray, bribery, threats, etc.......WHATEVER IT TAKES.

Never play by "rules" when confronting people who either never played by rules or impose patently unfair ones. Never. Logic, reasoned arguments, and self-righteous indignation will get you nowhere. In the absence of money to remove yourself immediately from a situation, I highly recommend cunning.

Resolve that you have the wherewithal to move, AND DO NOT DEVIATE FROM THAT BELIEF. And do not be lulled into complacency by a temporary peace. Sooner or later, there will be more reminders of why you may need or want to move quickly. Don't be caught angry and emotional, scurrying to put a band-aid on a situation that now requires major surgery.

I'm currently practicing what I preach. I will let you know how it works out for me.

Kim :-)

Halima said...

Beautifully put Kim, much better than I did. Yes, the last time was the calm before the storm, with each incident getting worse than the last.

Anonymous said...

Welcome Back!
I too understand what you are talking about as far as the noise is concerned. I have next door neighbors who are in their late 20s and early 30s. We do not mix as far as being neighbors. Am closer to their Mother's age. Yes, having a certain amount of money could have afforded us both the opportunity to pick up and move. Fortunately, the manager keeps them quite. I would have thought England would have better noise laws. Things are changing so quick that people do not have a chance to adjust.
Good luck with the neighbor.

Anonymous said...

BTW, Halima please do not allow those people to get the best of you. Sometimes neighbors get a big laugh out of making others miserable.