My brother was hit by a drunk driver this morning while navigating the long-degentrified ghetto* which surrounds the University of Houston. Hes completely uninjured, but our car is significantly damaged and the driver escaped, so we have no chance of restitution. This is the second time weve had to pay for repairs to our car inflicted by criminal action, the first being when a disturbed Muslim high school classmate of ours smashed in our windows and made various scratches and dents totaling $830 in repairs. I actually heard one of the windows breaking - probably the last, since I didnt hear another - but didnt investigate because I heard just one sound and wasnt sure what it was, and I live in a very safe neighborhood and also thought I mightve imagined the sound in the haze of sleepiness. We never prosecuted him due to lack of evidence, but his older brother, who once agreed with me, prior to the vandalism, that his brother is a fanatic, and a mutual friend both obliquely admitted he is the perpetrator. The older brother, a laidback atheist, recently advised me to contact the younger brother about the matter, and this second incident has strengthened my resolve to do so, as Im tired of losing money to criminal actors. Whenever something like this happens, Im reminded of one of the most shocking and offensive events of my life: in high school, I narrowly prevented my $3,000 laptop from being stolen from the campus by an intruder. He escaped (without my laptop), but, in an example of a real and significant practical benefit from reading The Hardy Boys in boyhood, I memorized his license plate (which I can still recall to this day - X53 HHH), leading to his eventual capture and prosecution. I was widely regarded with overwhelming approval from staff and studentry alike (the story even spread to other schools in the area and was dramatized in a student short film), but there was one exception: an upperclassman, a heavily-Westernized, Christianized, and neoliberalized Asian, who asked me, Why didnt you just let him go? You dont know his situation. This ranks in the top ten most imbecilic perspectives Ive ever heard. The level of stupidity was so high that I felt no anger nor even disgust, just absolute blankness as I took several long moments to process the sheer immensity of the idiocy. I then quietly walked away, realizing the person in front of me is fairly insane. I had a worrying preview of his astonishing, pretentious naïveté some months before, when hed said his only purpose in life is to glorify God through his musicianship and so money didnt matter to him - said while attending a high school that costs almost $20,000 a year, one of many examples of the self-righteous delusion which plagues many neoliberal Westerners raised in wealth. Ive not communicated with him since - again, not out of anger, but simply because some (actually, most) people just arent worth having any contact with at all. Shortly after that conversation, I discovered through law enforcement that the man is a hardened, career criminal named Taiwo Morufu Pitan who goes in and out of jail. Heh... *Footnote: The story goes that long ago, the neighborhood was an upscale white community until a single Jewish family moved in, causing the whites to flee and turning the area Jewish; then a single black family moved in, causing the Jews to flee, and the area began to devolve into the ghetto it is now, much to the chagrin of the university, which has for decades quietly purchased land to create a buffer zone between campus and ghetto. I learned this when I wondered how hoodrats could afford such large houses.
Posted on: Sat, 26 Jul 2014 19:11:12 +0000
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