Dominic Holden

This is where Shannon Harps was murdered.

This is the front of Philly Cheese Steak, where an employee was shot and the owner was murdered.

Notes and offerings show both victims were loved by friends and family. But Harps’ memorial bears extra candles and shelter to burn them. it is maintained by someone or everyone. Her memorial is warm.

Harps’ murder prompted self-defense classes, neighborhood discussion, and established the social networks that protect people and make them feel protected. The result of organizing was this: looking forward to the neighborhood’s bright future.

But the memorial at 23rd and Union lingers no empowerment. There is fury at guns. There is anger, blame, disgust. If there were neighborhood meetings about a community response, and I live two blocks away, I heard nothing of them. The memorial is mostly gone now. The future seems bleak.

A side note before proceeding. Of course, there are differences between the crimes and victims: white/black, female/male, knife/gun, random victim/motive. The last is a possible explanations for why Harps’ murder is a rallying point. She was killed randomly, which we all fear. In the other case, we were told the victim was killed for some unspecified role in another couple’s domestic violence dispute. We tend to believe that if, within private lives, someone has a beef someone else and shoots him or her, that the victim may have brought their fate on themselves. Thus, the owner of the sandwich shop cold be a less sympathetic figure than Harps. Or, in another explanation, the gun used on 23rd and Union is indicative of a problem too big to solve at the neighborhood level.

But I don’t think the anger and helplessness in the Central District stems from the nature of killing nor the murder weapon. I wonder instead about the state of 23rd and Union and the neighborhood around it. I wonder whether divisions in “the community”–between the wealthier white homeowners and the younger non-white folks–has something to do with the response.

Because, for the Central District to organize around the Philly Cheese Steak shooting, as Capitol Hill did around the Harps murder, would realistically be to convene black neighbors in one group and the white neighbors in another, to make the area “safer” by vilifying the hoodlums, further gentrifying the neighborhood. That result, gentrification, is one the sensitive white homeowners are leery of visibly accelerating and a prospect that makes long-time residents angry. The solution is thus the problem. That is, to combat death in the neighborhood, at the expense of essentially admitting the death of the neighborhood. I may be wrong, of course. But how would a community respond to the shooting at Philly’s without creating more division, without gentrifying? What is the scenario that gives this man a remembrance as warm and empowered as Ms. Harps?

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 16th, 2008 at 11:32 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.